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EVERYCHILB’S SERIES 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK . BOSTON • CHICAGO 
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON . BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd, 

TORONTO 



•• . 





EVERTCHILD^S SERIES 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


TALES OF THE TEN GRANDCHILDREN 


BY 

MARTHA YOUNG 

AUTHOR OF “plantation SONGS,” “PLANTATION 
BIRD LEGENDS,” “SOMEBODY’S LITTLE GIRL,” 
AND OTHER BOOKS 


ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS OF CIVIL WAR TIMES 
AND BY DRAWINGS BY SOPHIE SCHNEIDER 



* > > 


Neto gork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1912 


All rights reserved 



Copyright, 1912, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1912. 


Nori»o0li i^regg 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


* 


$ 0+0 


TO 

GESSNER 

^ TO 

WILLIE 

AND ALL THE DEAR GRANDCHILDREN 
WHO PLAYED SO HAPPILY IN 
OLD GREENE SPRINGS 


GARDEN 



CONTENTS 


Grandmother’s Wedding Gloves 
Mother’s Gold Thimble 

Emerald-Gold 

A Peach-tree and a Tiny Basket 

Goose Quills 

Clover Wreaths .... 
Hallowe’en Witches 
Ted’s Thanksgiving 
A Thanksgiving Gentleman 
The Christmas Stalk . 

A Queer Hatching 
A Downy Chick .... 
Lighted Candles .... 
Grandmother’s Spool of Pink Silk 
Our Fourth o’ July Minstrels . 


PAGE 

1 

14 

24 

34 

43 

51 

60 

69 

79 

88 

98 

108 

119 

130 

145 







WHEN WE WERE WEE 



V 


CHAPTER I 


GRANDMOTHER’S WEDDING GLOVES 

Our Grandmother sat in her arm-chair 
with the round pillow in the back of her 
chair, her feet on a footstool, and her own 
black maid, Dilsey, holding an old brass- 
bound '' small-box” for Grandmother to look 
over. Queer old things that had been in 
the brass-bound ''small-box” were scattered 
about, and a pair of old white kid gloves, 
taken from the "small-box,” lay in Grand- 
mother's lap. 

"These were my wedding gloves,” said our 
Grandmother. 

Then she told us what a long, long way those 
gloves had come by land, by water, by cara- 
van, before they had reached her home of the 
long ago ; for when on her wedding day Grand- 
mother wore those gloves Alabama was not 


1 


2 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


yet a state of the Union, and things in those 
days travelled in a slow way, as travel slowly 
they must in a pioneer country. 

And now it was War-time. Alabama was 
again not a state of the Union, for our Grand- 
father had signed the Order of Secession at 
Montgomery, and every one of our fathers 
was in the army. 

There were ten of us grandchildren, and we 
thought it great fun to be all together at 
Grandmother's house. 

We did not expect to be long together, if we 
thought of it at all, because at first we had 
heard all the grown folks say: ''At most the 
War can last but six months." 

But would you believe it ! The War had 
lasted already almost two years now ! This 
was our second War-Christmas. 

No toys had run the blockade in a long, 
long time, and we ''little pitchers with long 
ears " — how angry we children grew when 
Aunts called us that ! — had heard the grown 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


3 


folks say to each other that we might have to 
do without Christmas this year. Think of 
that ! Do without Christmas ! Now we 
knew that warVas indeed a dreadful thing. — 
To do without Christmas ! 

No grandchild had ever before heard of such 
a thing. No Christmas ! That very day, — 
and it was Christmas Eve, too, — as we sat 
listening, all ten of us, to Grandmother as she 
told of the grand wedding and the white 
gloves, we heard Aunts say to each other: 

There will be no Christmas this year.'' 

The two Aunts sat at a window in Grand- 
mother's room, and we distinctly heard them 
say : ''There will be no Christmas this year." 

We grandchildren looked one at another, 
one at another, one at another, until we had 
all ten looked at all the others. 

We knew now what war meant. 

The two Aunts had said : " There will be 
no Christmas this year." 

"Come!" said Grandmother. It did not 


4 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


matter to Grandmother how great and grown 
Aunts were; she said ''Come!'' to Aunts 
whenever it suited her to do so, just as our 
mothers said "Come" to us when we were 
naughty. 

"Come, come!" said Grandmother. "No 
Christmas ! I never heard of such a thing. 
It is bound to come, for it is down in the 
almanac." 

Then one little grandchild, one who looked 
so solemn all the time that we thought he 
would make a great man some day, asked: 
"Grandmother, did Christmas stay away be- 
fore when Alabama was not a state in the 
Union?" 

We all thought it very smart of our "Judge" 
to ask that, and our Grandmother answered : 
"Never." 

Then we all felt much better about Christ- 
mas ! 

Grandmother said again to the two Aunts : 
" Come, come ! I would make Christmas out 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


5 


of these old gloves rather than not have Christ- 
mas come at all V 

Then Grandmother said to her own black 
maid Dilsey: ''Dilsey/' 

Dilsey said: ''Yas, ma'am/’ 

Grandmother said : '' Dilsey, put down the 
'small-box' and go to the closet on the left 
of the fireplace and get out the bow-basket 
and bring it to me." 

Dilsey said : " Yas, ma'am." 

Dilsey put down the brass-bound "small- 
box, " which all that time she had been holding 
for Grandmother to look over, and opened 
the closet on the left of the fireplace and 
lifted the bow-basket from a shelf and said: 
"Mistis, mus' I bring what's in it too?" 

We looked at one another all around, and 
as we looked we wondered : "What is in the 
bow-basket?" 

But in a minute we knew — every one of 
us — what was in the bow-basket, for the 
whole room was sweet with the odor of apples ! 


6 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Then Grandmother put her two little 
wrinkled white hands into the bow-basket 
and took out two round, red apples ; then she 
put her hands into the bow-basket again and 
took out two more round, red apples; five 
times she put her two hands into the bow- 
basket, and each time took out two round, 
red apples, for there were ten of us grand- 
children. 

She did not say a word, and we did not say 
a word. 

Dilsey, when she was told, put the bow- 
basket back on the shelf and came again to 
Grandmother's chair and took up the brass- 
bound ''small-box." 

Then Grandmother said to the oldest grand- 
child : "Take this apple, and eat it, and bring 
every seed out of it to me." 

Then Grandmother said to the next oldest 
grandchild: "Take this apple, eat it, and 
bring every seed out of it to me." 

Grandmother gave us each, one by one, all 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 7 

ten of US, an apple, and to every one of us, one 
by one, she said as she gave it: ''Take this 
apple, eat it, and bring every seed out of it 
to me/' 

Then we went out of Grandmother's room, 
all ten of us in a row, and we went down the 
path that ran by the camellia-japonica hedge, 
and there we sat down all in a row. 

Then the oldest grandchild of all said: 
"Didn't Grandmother say that to us very 
solemnly?" 

Then the next oldest grandchild said: "I 
felt so strangely as she said it!" 

Then the next oldest said: "But there is 
nothing for us to do but to eat the apples." 

So we sat all in a row, all ten of us, and be- 
gan to eat the apples. 

We were talking of many things, — there 
were always many things to talk of ! — and we 
had eaten our apples almost down to the cores 
when the oldest grandchild of all cried : " Oh, 
the seeds 1" 


8 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Then the next oldest of all the grandchildren 
cried : '' Don't forget the seeds ! " 

Then ''Judge/' who had eaten farther down 
in his apple than any of us, said : "lam saving 
mine." 

And he held up a magnolia leaf turned up- 
side-down, and there on the soft brown lining 
of the leaf were laid two apple seeds, and 
Judge was eating down to the others. 

So all ten of us picked up magnolia leaves 
and turned them upside-down and put apple 
seeds on them. 

When all the apples were eaten, and the 
seeds of all saved, we found that one of us 
had six seeds, another five, others even 
eight or more. Then we talked a long time 
about the best way to carry to Grandmother 
the seeds that she had told us to bring back to 
her. 

At length we decided to go in a row, all ten 
of us, carrying the apple seeds carefully on the 
magnolia leaves as if on trays, — "jade-trays, " 



9 








10 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


the oldest grandchild said, — and we decided to 
say, one by one, beginning with the youngest : 
''Thank you. Grandma. We enjoyed the 
apples very much, and here are the seeds you 
told us to bring you.'' 

So we went in a row, all ten of us, one by 
one, and, beginning with the youngest, we 
said, one after the other, the very words we 
had planned to say. 

Then Grandmother took the first magnolia 
leaf with the seeds on it that was handed to 
her, and she wrote on the brown lining of the 
leaf: "Ted." 

Then on the brown lining of the next leaf 
she wrote also with the point of her knitting- 
needle : ' ' Amaryllis. ' ' 

Upon the brown lining of every leaf she 
wrote with the point of her knitting-needle 
the name of the grandchild who had brought 
the leaf. 

Then she said : " Run away now ! Every 
one of you ten grandchildren ! Run to the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


11 


rose garden to play. And don't let me hear 
of you again to-day !" 

And we went. 

The next morning — early, early, early — 
for it was Christmas morning, just after stock- 
ing-opening time, Dilsey, Grandmother's own 
black maid, went to every room in the house 
where a little girl or a little boy slept. Dilsey 
knocked at every door of every room where 
a child slept, and she handed in a little, tiny 
white box. 

At every door to which Dilsey went she 
said, just outside the door, when it was opened 
to her knock, just as Grandmother had told 
her to say: ''A Merry Christmas to you 
from Grandma!" And Dilsey added every 
time of her own fancy: ''Dat what Ole 
Miss say." 

When every little girl and when every little 
boy opened the tiny box that Dilsey had 
handed in, there was, in each tiny box, a small 
white card. And on the small white card 


12 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


was a tiny white bag of meal (or what looked 
like a tiny bag of meal). 

And there were on the cards mice ! Tiny, 
tiny, tiny brown mice, running over the cards 
and up the bags of meal ! Or what seemed to 
be tiny brown mice running after the meal-bags. 

When a little later we all came together in 
the hall, all ten of us grandchildren, to show 
one another our early morning Christmas 
boxes, we found that one had five mice, an- 
other had six mice, and another had even as 
many as eight mice on the white cards, run- 
ning after the small meal-bags. 

Then suddenly Judge remembered that he 
had had just six seeds from his apple. Then 
one by one we remembered, until all of us 
remembered how many apple seeds we had 
had — and then we knew that the apple seeds 
had turned into little brown mice ! 

Yes, these were the apple seeds that Grand- 
mother had told us to bring back to her. 

Those funny little mice all had little whiskers 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


13 


of black silk thread on their little pointed 
noses. Those little mice all had tails of black 
silk thread. They all had tiny legs of black 
silk thread stitches, which fastened them to 
the white cards. 

We looked at those little mice and those 
little bags of meal, and we talked about them 
at times all Christmas day. They were so 
interesting and so queer. 

But we could not guess what the bags were 
made of until at last the oldest grandchild of 
all cried: ''Grandmother's wedding gloves!" 

Then we knew. 

The ten little bags were the ten finger 
and thumb-tips of the wedding gloves. The 
tips were turned wrong-side-out, and that 
gave them the soft, almost downy, look that 
bags full of meal have, and they were stuffed, 
those tiny bags, with perfumed cotton. 

So our Grandmother, who always did what 
she said she would do, had indeed made Christ- 
mas out of her wedding gloves. 


CHAPTER II 


MOTHER^S GOLD THIMBLE 

Doc and Amy and Elise and Willy-boy 
were in great trouble. Doc and Amy and 
Elise and Willy-boy all sat on the shady side 
of the woodhouse in the back yard and talked 
their troubles over. 

They sat under the Palma Christ! stalks 
that grew tall, taller than the woodhouse, 
and the shadows of the great leaves of the 
plant fell upon them like shadows of stars. 
Doc and Amy and Elise and Willy-boy were 
always fond of going to this favorite place of 
Doc's and watching the shadows of the leaves 
falling like black stars in the sunlight; but 
they all were in too much trouble to-day to 
look at the star shadows on the ground. 

remember," said Doc, ''that when the 
Pierret children from the next plantation 


14 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 15 

were here I got It from Mother to play with. 
I don't remember any more." 

''I remember," said Amy; ''I don't know 
exactly when it was, that I got It from Mother 
to draw scallops on the apron that Aunts are 
showing me how to buttonhole-edge for 
Mother's birthday present. I remember that 
the wounded soldier came just then, — and 
I don't remember any more." 

''I found your scalloping under the lilacs 
where Toto had carried it, and though Toto 
is such a mischievous dog, he hadn't tom it a 
bit," said Elise. ''A great deal has happened 
to-day," she added; ''we have had company 
of our own — and the wounded soldier." 

But even the thought of so eventful a day 
could only divert their minds for a moment 
from their great trouble. Doc, Amy, and 
Elise and Willy-boy all shook their heads 
solemnly as their thoughts went back to it. 

"I remember," said Elise, and she hung 
her head; "but I can't remember whether it 


16 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


was to-day or yesterday, that I was so dis- 
tressed at losing my little gold chain, my 
Christmas-before-the-War-chain, that I took 
It from Mother's basket and I went to the 
gravel walk where I last remembered wearing 
the chain, and I shut my eyes tight and I 
turned around and around, and I said : — 

' Gold, find gold ! 

What I have let me hold. 

Gold, gold, find gold ! ’ 

Then I threw It as far as I could with my eyes 
shut tight! And sure enough when I opened 
my eyes there on the gravel lay my little 
chain near where It had fallen. I was so glad 
to find my chain that I remember I ran and 
picked that up, — but whether I picked It 
up — I can't remember — " 

At that Doc, Amy, Elise, and Willy-boy all 
looked more solemn than ever. 

''And so I know," said Elise, "that I have 
been the worst of all !" 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


17 


''I 'member/' confessed Willy-boy, ''that 
one day, maybe this day, I played I was cook- 
boy, and I was in the kitchen with Aunt Chloe, 
and I got It from Mother to cut teeny weeny 
biscuits with It ; I don't 'member any more." 

"We have all done wrong," said Doc, after 
a solemn pause. 

Doc had a right to say that. He was 
the oldest. He was quite ten. Mother and 
Father both relied on him, and called him 
just "Son." Amy, Elise, and Willy-boy all 
said: "Yes, we have done wrong." 

All the ladies in the neighborhood had 
met to sew for the soldiers, and Mother's 
gold thimble was lost. "We must all do 
something," said Doc, "to show that we are 
sorry we have been careless and to show that 
we will not be careless with Mother's gold 
thimble again." 

"I saw a thimble case at the Ladies' 
Bazaar," said Elise; "it was made of a white 
walnut shell." 


18 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''Oh/' said Amy, "that sounds as if we 
could make one — perhaps — " 

"A walnut shell ?" asked Doc. 

"That is what she said," said Willy-boy. 

" I think I can tell exactly how it was made," 
said Elise, who was as anxious as could be that 
something should be done. 

" Don't let Mother know until it is finished," 
said Doc. "Then let us all look and look 
until we find the thimble, and then let us 
never lose it again." 

" — If we can help it," said Amy. 

"I will go and ask Aunts for a walnut," 
said Elise. 

"Everybody must do something in the 
making of it," said Doc. 

"Doc, I will tell you what will be your 
part," said Elise, who was the one who could 
tell how it was to be made. "You must cut 
the shell carefully open down the seam of it to 
divide the two halves, and then at the top 
and bottom of each shell a small hole must be 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


19 


made, —teeny tiny holes through which ribbons 
maybe run/' 

^'Yes," said Doc; ''I can do those things. 
I can make the tiny holes by burning with a 
very hot wire." 

''I will get a knitting-needle from Aunts," 
said Amy; ''you can burn the holes with 
that." 

"And what can I do ?" asked Amy. 

" There must be a wee silk bag to fit between 
the shells." 

"Oh, I can make the wee silk bag," said 
Amy. 

"And what can I do ? " said Willy-boy. 

"Somebody must eat the nut," said Elise; 
''Willy-boy, you can eat the nut." 

When all were ready. Doc divided the nut 
carefully down the seam. Willy-boy ate the 
kernel. Doc scraped the inside of the halves 
of the shell until the inside was almost as 
smooth as the outside. Amy cut a bit from 
the end of her rose-colored sash, her prettiest 


20 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


sash, and, while she made the bag carefully 
to fit between the two halves of the shell. Doc 
and Elise went to heat the point of the knit- 
ting-needle that they might burn the holes. 
Oh, that was delicate work ! The children 
had to be so careful not to crack the shells 
while the hole was bored in the top of each 
half-shell and another hole in the bottom of 
each half-shell. When the four holes were 
burned in — and not a crack in the shells — 
the tiny silk bag was finished too. Then some 
help from Aunts was needed, for the bag had 
to be fastened to the bottom of the half 
shells by running a very narrow pink ribbon 
through the two tiny holes. Then draw- 
ribbons had to be put in the top of the bag, 
and these, too, must be run through the 
holes in the top of the half-shells. At the 
top and bottom the ribbons were tied in 
pretty bowknots, while the two halves of 
the shell lay closely together, and the silk 
bag was hidden inside. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


21 


The thimble case was finished. 

Thanks to the skill of Aunts, it opened and 
shut most beautifully on the draw-ribbons. 

When the four children all went to hunt for 
the thimble, where do you think it was found ? 

Kitty-grey was playing with it in the comer 
of Mother's room, tossing it about on her 
forepaws. So the thimble was soon put into 
the new case. 

''If we could only go to Mother right 
now ! " said Elise. 

But Mother was in the long parlor, sewing 
for the soldiers with the ladies of the neigh- 
borhood. For such important sewing she was 
using her silver thimble, for she thought that 
the gold thimble was lost. 

"Now," said Doc, as the children waited 
for the time to pass and for the ladies to go ; 
"when grown people are banded together to 
do anything, they call themselves a society 
and make a name for themselves." 

"Yes," said Amy; "let us do that. That 


22 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


will be fine. We are banded together not to 
lose Mother's thimble any more, — if we did 
lose it this time, — anyhow, we are a society 
for that now, and we must make a name for 
ourselves — " 

''Oh, that sounds exciting," cried Elise. 
" I have heard the soldiers, specially the Lieu- 
tenant and the Captain, say they wanted to 
make a name for themselves in battle. — Let 
us be the Company of Trusty Thimblers !" 

Elise was always good at making names. I 
think if she had been a soldier she would have 
made a name for herself right away ! 

"We are the Trusty Thimblers !" said Doc, 
Amy, Elise, and Willy-boy all together. 

So, as the last of the ladies of the neighbor- 
hood left, the Trusty Thimblers went hand in 
hand to Mother, and Willy-boy, at the end 
of the row of four, carried the thimble case 
because he was the youngest ; and though he 
was the youngest, he had helped, too, for he 
had eaten the nut. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 23 

Wasn't Mother surprised with the gift of 
the thimble case ! Wasn't Mother pleased 
with the gift of the thimble case ! 

Then Mother said that she wished never, 
never to lose that gold thimble because our 
Black Mammy had given each one of us, when 
we were wee, wee babies, oxxr first drink of water 
from that thimble, because Mammy said that 
to insure beauty and long life and happiness 
and all good things to a child, its first drink 
of water must be from 
a vessel of gold, and we 
had no vessels of gold 
in our house, only many 
of silver — then. So 
Mammy had impro- 
vised a drinking vessel 
from Mother's gold 
thimble. Mother told 
us that as she tied the thimble in its new 



case. 



That was the song that Elise made about the 
orange-tree in our grandmother’s front yard. 
Amy said that it was a beautiful song. Doc said 
that he thought so, too, — ''as far as it went.’’ 

"Well,” said Elise, skipping about very 
happily under the trees, "that grew in my head 
just as it is ; and if any more grows, why. I’ll 
tell you that, too.” 

"There might be something about pearls,” 
said Amy; "for the white buds and blossoms 
are something like clusters of pearls.” 


24 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


25 


'' Yes, they are,'' said Elise. 

"But," said Doc, "it is Elise's song, and 
it is only fair for us to let it alone until, as she 
says, some more of it grows in her head." 

"Oh," said Elise; "I don't care how it 
grows if only it does grow ; but anyway I am 
going right now to pick the ripest orange 
that I can see and make something pretty that 
Aunts showed me last week when I had a 
cold and had to stay in the house all day." 

" I know how to make something, too," cried 
Amy, "but it is something that we all know." 

"Let's each make something from an 
orange," suggested Doc, "and then let's all 
come together and show what we have made." 

"And give a prize ?" asked Em. 

"Yes, a prize," consented Amy, whose 
word always weighed with us; "a cluster of 
blooms will be the prize for the best thing made 
of an orange." 

So we all set to work making things, that 
is, all who were then at play in the yard. 


26 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Elise took her orange, the very nicest that 
she could reach on the tree, to the honey- 
suckle arbor to make the pretty thing that 
Aunts had made for her when she was ill. 
First she had to go into the house to borrow 
Mother's small penknife. 

Doc went to his favorite workshop place, 
the shaded side of the woodhouse, where the 
rank growth of Palma Christ! trees threw 
black shadow-stars from their leaves. He sat 
there a while to think and to remember what 
he had ever seen or heard of that could 
be made of oranges. He said afterward, 
when we all came together, that what he 
did make was easy enough, only he lost so 
much time in thinking and remembering; 
but then he did not have to go after a knife, 
— he had one in his pocket. That is the 
good of being a boy, a boy big enough to 
have two pockets, with a knife in one of 
them, — one always has a good tool at hand. 

Amy sat down where she was, under the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 27 

orange-tree, to try to think of something to 
make that would be new to all of us; and 
while she thought, she ate three oranges. 

Willy-boy sat down under the tree, too, and 
set to thinking with his chin in his hand and 
his elbow on his knee ; but he kept saying that 
he could think of nothing, and he asked Amy 
if she could not divide her thinking with him. 

Amy said: ''Willy-boy, I haven't thought 
of anything either ; if I had I would divide. 
But suppose you go and ask Mother to help 
you; you know when little boys are only 
three they have a right to Mother's help, 
even when there are prizes." 

So Willy-boy went to ask Mother. 

He came back directly, laughing and clap- 
ping his hands. 

Amy said: "Mother helped you, didn't 
she?" 

Willy-boy said : "Yes, she did." 

Willy-boy asked Amy to pick him five 
even-sized, nice big ripe oranges, and with the 


28 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


five oranges in his apron, held up tight and 
fast, he ran back to Mother. 

Elise was the first one ready with her ^'try- 
for-the-prize'' ; but then, as she said, that was 
natural, as she had known beforehand just 
what she would make, while the others had to 
think, to remember, or perhaps even to invent, 
and so, of course, needed time. So Elise 
waited quite patiently until the others were 
ready. When the other four were ready, they 
all came to the tree. 

Willy-boy came, but he said that Mother 
had told him to come back a little later for 
his ''try-for-the-prize.'' So, he stood smiling 
under the tree with his arms folded and 
looked at the others' ''pretty things made of 
oranges." 

Elise showed hers first. It was an orange, 
half peeled from the stem end, the peel being 
divided into many small and even sections, and 
each small, even section of the peel was turned 
over and slipped under where the peel still 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


29 


held to the orange, making many little loops 
of yellow peel all lined with white, and these 
looked like the curled petals of a large flower, 
while the orange itself made the rich center 
of the flower. 

''Now,'' said Elise, who always saw things 
in a way of her own, "it is as if the orange 
had grown to be a flower again, only this time 
it is like a flower of gold instead of a flower of 
pearl ; and," said Elise, "it looks to me some- 
thing like a yellow lily." 

"Yes, it does," said Amy; "and it is beau- 
tiful." 

Then Doc asked us to excuse him if he 
turned his back on all of us. And when he 
faced us again he looked for all the world like 
an ogre ! That was what Amy said he looked 
like, and we knew that Amy knew. 

He had cut two rows of teeth out of the peel 
of an orange and had slipped them over his own 
teeth, and he looked fierce enough to frighten 
anybody ! We laughed and we laughed. 


30 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Then it was Amy's turn, and she said that 
she had eaten three oranges — very slowly — 
and yet she had been able to think only of the 
way she and Elise had long ago made hats for 
dolls out of the half of an orange-peel, turning 
it up all around the edge, making a rim of 
white to a hat of gold, and then trimming the 
hat with a bunch of orange blossoms. 

Elise said she was so glad that Amy had 
made one of those hats, because she always 
did love those orange-peel hats for dolls ! 

When it was Em's turn, she said she had 
thought of something a little new. She had 
a brood of tiny white chickens with green legs. 
The chicks were made of orange seeds with 
tiny bits of green thorn stuck in for the legs. 
She had cut a wing on either side of the 
seed by slicing it up half way, the point of 
the seed made the bill, and Em had dotted 
an eye with ink on each side of the bill. 

Doc said that it was a new idea to make 
chicks out of orange seeds. He stood one of 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 31 

the chicks up in a piece of peel that looked 
like a small tray, and said that it reminded 
him of a song that old black Aunt Drusilla 
sang to put the smaller grandchildren to 
sleep : — 

Chicken in the bread-tray, 

Scratching up dough ! 

Granny will your dog bite ? 

No, child, no ! 

Willy-boy had become so much interested 
in looking at all the 'Hry-for-the-prizes'' that 
he forgot to go back for his own till Mother 
came to the edge of the gallery and called to 
him. Beside Mother stood her black maid, 
Mitty. Mitty held a small silver tray. A 
napkin was over the tray, and none of us, not 
even Willy-boy himself, knew what was under 
the napkin. Willy-boy ran to the gallery, 
and he came back to the tree, walking beside 
Mitty, just as eager as the rest of us to know 
what was under the napkin. 


32 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


When he lifted the napkin, there on the tray 
were five little golden baskets. Each basket 
was made of the half of an orange-peel, and a 
strip of peel was left for the handle to the 
basket; a tiny bow of orange-colored ribbon 
was tied on the tip of the handle of each bas- 
ket. We all cried out with delight at the 
beauty of those baskets, and we all told Willy- 
boy that his orange-toy was the best of all ! 

In the baskets was — ambrosia ! 

Ambrosia is made of bits of orange and 
grated cocoanut in equal parts, with sugar — 
much sugar ! — and orange juice poured over 
all, with a taste of lemon juice in it, too. 

Oh, how we all liked ambrosia ! 

We seated ourselves in a circle under the 
orange-tree and ate the ambrosia from the 
gold-colored baskets, and we voted one and 
all that Willy-boy should have the prize. 

So^Doc climbed the tree and plucked the 
most beautiful cluster of blossoms that he 
could find, for the blooms were rare when the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


33 


oranges were ripening so fast. Amy reached 
up, because she was the tallest of us all, and 
took the cluster from Doc's hand, as he handed 
it down from the branch of the tree, so that it 
might not have a shattering fall, and she put 
the cluster of blooms into Willy-boy's hand. 

Willy-boy said that he would give it to 
Mother, for it was Mother's thought that 
won the prize, and Mother's thought was 
the best of all; and he ran into the house 
with the blossoms. 

Mother put the cluster in fresh water in a 
little vase on her work table, with the pretty 
shining let-me-up-and-down leaves and draw- 
ers, and she said she would look at it many 
times as she sewed. Ladies sewed all day 
long in those times for the soldiers, because 
the soldiers were our own. 


CHAPTER IV 


A PEACH-TREE AND A TINY BASKET 

Em stood in the sunlight on the steps of the 
side gallery with two luscious peaches, one in 
each hand; and she called to the two boys 
who were playing in the yard beyond: 
have something for you, — both of you !' 

Then the two boys ran a race to see which 
would get there first, and, after all, they both 
got there at the same time ! So Em held her 
hands behind her and said: ‘'Which hand. 
Judge ? '' You see. Judge did so much think- 
ing that we felt obliged to call him by a serious 
name, although he had a very good name of 
his own. 

Then Em said : “Which hand. Doc ? '' 

Doc had a very good name of his own, too ; 
but I never knew a family of brothers or cousins 
who did not have among them a Doc. You 

34 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


35 


see it was always expected that one of the 
family would become a great doctor some day. 

Judge chose one hand. I forget whether 
it was the right or left that day, and Doc, of 



Doc AND Judge 


course, took the other, as there were only 
two hands to choose from. It made no dif- 


36 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


ference, however, because Em said that the 
peaches were exactly even, evenly ripe, evenly 
beautiful. 

Peaches were no rarity at Grandmother's, 
for the orchard of peach-trees that climbed 
the gravelly hill in front of the house spread 
over nearly five acres. But these peaches were 
particularly fine, and they were from the first 
basket gathered from the tree Grandfather 
had planted with his own hands. So it was 
very kind of Em to choose two for those two 
boys, and she looked so dear standing there 
in the sunlight, with her hands behind her, 
asking ''Which hand?" that somehow the 
giving of those peaches seemed to both boys 
an event. 

Events were always made memorable in 
some way. There were the pressed bay 
leaves, still kept in the big black and gold 
Bible in memory of a great event, for those 
bay leaves had been used to decorate the 
old State House at Cahaba, when that town 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


37 


had been the capital of Alabama. Then our 
great-aunts, with other little girls, had strewn 
flowers before the great French general, 
Lafayette, when he had visited Alabama. 
There was the quaint gold snuffbox, brought 
from England, which made memorable to 
us the friendship between our ancestor who 
first chose America for his home and the 
great orator. Fox. And so on ran the stories 
of the many memorable things treasured in 
Grandmother's house, down to the memorable 
things of our own day ; the bright brass but- 
tons of the gray uniforms and the brass belt 
buckles with the glistening ''C-S-A" upon 
them. Grandmother said that these would 
be most famous some day, some distant 
day, like the relics of the Revolutionary 
War and other things, even older, that we 
now treasured. 

We found it hard to understand why these 
things should be memorable, for these belts 
and buckles, these trappings of war, we saw all 


38 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


the time, and they naturally seemed ordinary, 
everyday things to us. 

Indeed, only the oldest of us grandchildren 
(there were ten of us) could remember seeing 
our fathers and uncles in anything but war 
clothes, for the War had been going on several 
years now, and — but I started to tell how 
Doc and Judge wished to make memorable 
the event of Em's giving them the beautiful 
peaches. 

The two boys sat on the heap of logs in the 
pasture for a long time, talking over what they 
could do to celebrate the event. At last 
Judge got up, saying he had an idea, and that 
he was going off to 'do the thing that he had 
thought of. 

Doc could not think at all that day, it seemed 
to him, and he sat there on the logs in the 
blazing sun, until his sister Elise came to 
tell him that the children's dinner table was 
ready. She said: ''What are you thinking 
about out here in this sun ?" 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


39 


Doc told her what was the trouble ; he was 
not thinking, he was trying to think, but he 
was not able to think of anything. As they 
went to the house together he told Elise all 
about the two peaches, and how he and Judge 
wanted to make the gift memorable. 

Elise did not seem to think the matter of 
any importance at all, and went skipping and 
jumping along beside Doc. 

But just as they reached the house she said : 
tell you. Doc, — plant the kernel.’' 

''There,” said Doc; "I never thought of 
that.” 

"That is old, but somehow it seems new,” 
said Elise ; "just give a planting and invite us 
all, and then build a small pen around the 
place where you plant it, and, if it lives, call 
it Em’s tree.” 

"I’ll do it,” said Doc; "I wonder what 
Judge will do ? He had a thought.” 

So Doc invited all the children at children’s 
table to come out to the planting of Em’s 


40 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


tree in the southwest comer of Grandmother's 
orchard ; and we all went. 

The next oldest grandchild, the one who was 
always poring over a book, said she had read 
that to save the peach stone the trouble of turn- 
ing over, it must be put into the ground with 
the stem end down and the pointed end up. 
She said that after it had been in the ground 
for a certain time the stone opened, like a 
pocket-book, and the kernel came out in a 
twist at first, and then spread itself out into 
tiny leaves. 

None of the rest of us had read that, but we all 
believed it, only Caro insisted that we were at 
a funeral, and pretended to cry, just to tease 
us. Caro said it would never do to give the 
poor stone cause to turn in its grave ! And 
so it was planted with the stem end down- 
ward. 

We built a pen of pine sticks around it, and 
said that if it ever grew it was to be called 
Em's tree. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


41 


Just after the planting, Judge, who had 
been looking more solemn than usual, went up 
to Em and said, ''Hold fast what I give you 1 ” 
and when Em shut her eyes and put out her 
hand to "hold fast,'' Judge slipped something 
into her hand and ran off as fast as his legs 
could carry him. 

Em "held fast" a second, then she opened 
her hand and looked — and there was such 
a tiny basket. 

It was a little larger than her thumb-nail. 
It was brown all over. The whole of the bas- 
ket, even the handle, was in one piece. There 
was not a seam or a put-together part in it ; 
it was all one. 

Judge had cut this wee basket from his 
peach stone. The stem end of the stone made 
the bottom of the basket, and the pointed end 
was the handle. A three-cornered section had 
been cut out evenly from each side of the 
stone, leaving a line to the point on either side 
for the handle of the basket. Then the kernel 


42 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


had been cut and lifted out, and the hollow 
where it had been made a tiny place for the 
inside of the basket. 

So the event of the giving of the peaches 
had been made memorable in two ways, for the 
peach stone that Doc planted grew and bore 
splendid peaches for many years, and it was 
always called Em's tree ; and the basket that 
Judge cut from the peach stone was a lasting 
pleasure to many little girls, for many little 
boys took it for a pattern by which to cut 
other baskets as pretty and as tiny. 

It takes a sharp knife, though, and much care 
and patient work to make a peach-stone basket. 


CHAPTER V 
GOOSE QUILLS 

'' I WONDER why it is that we always have 
goose on Michaelmas Day/' said Judge. 

He was lying on his back, haK way down one 
of the rose terraces in our Grandmother's 
garden, his hands were clasped behind his 
head, and he was looking up at the blue, blue 
sky of September. 

''Aunts said we had goose to bring good 
luck," said Doc. 

"Grandma said 'Nonsense,' " said Amy. 

"Aunty Jean said we had goose on Michael- 
mas to put money in the purse all the year 
round," said Elise, the hopeful, who always 
found a good reason to believe all good things 
possible. 

"Grandma said 'Nonsense,'" again re- 
minded Doc. 


43 


44 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


^'Grandma knows/^ said Caro, finally. 

''Of course she does,'' said Amy. 

"Then why is it?" persisted Judge. 

Then the next oldest grandchild, the one 
who was near-sighted and always squinting 
over books, said, "One reason may be — " 

"Don't say anything about Rome," said 
Judge, sitting up straight on the terrace. 
Judge loved a story, and though he was too 
lazy to read books to find out the stories for 
himself, he was always ready to hear them 
told; but then they always had to be new. 
For he said when you had heard one you could 
think it over and change and arrange it to 
suit yourself. So he said : "Please don't say 
anything about a goose saving Rome." 

"No," said the oldest grandchild; "for we 
finished Rome last year !" 

The next oldest grandchild squinted up her 
eyes a little more and said : "I wasn't going 
to say anything about Rome. I was going 
to say that I have heard that it was on 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


45 


Michaelmas Day that Queen Elizabeth hap- 
pened to be eating a goose when news was 
brought to her of the defeat of the Spanish 
Armada, — and in her joy at the news she 
said : 'Let every good Englishman ever after 
eat a goose on Michaelmas Day \ 

All the grandchildren looked very solemn 
as they thought over that. 

"But how was every good Englishman to 
get a goose asked Judge. 

Judge always loved to pick over his stories 
when he got them. 

"Raise them,'' said Doc. 

" The Spanish Armada seems very far off 
from us," said Elise ; "and besides, we are not 
good Englishmen. I would rather believe 
what Aunts said about the good luck and 
the money in the purse all the year round." 

"But Grandmother said 'Nonsense !'" said 
the oldest grandchild. 

"And Grandma knows," they all repeated. 

"It seems a pity to stop believing things," 


46 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


said Elise ; because Aunts were saying to-day 
that when they were little girls they believed 
that about money in the purse all the year 
round, and that on the first Michaelmas Day 
when they had heard about the money Grandpa 
laughed about it, but he gave them all around 
(Aunts were very little then) a silver picayune. 
And Aunts said that they had those picayunes 
yet — and that seems like a sign V 

''But Grandma said ‘Nonsense!''' insisted 
Amy. 

"When Aunts were so little. Grandma was 
not a Grandma," said Judge. 

Now that came of Judge's thinking so much ! 
that came of his lying on his back and think- 
ing so much, for only much, much thinking 
could have brought up a thought like that ! 

"That seems strange," said the oldest 
grandchild, in almost a whisper. 

Then we all sat in a row and thought, for it 
seemed to us, all ten grandchildren here on the 
rose terraces, that we were somehow respon- 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


47 


sible for Grandma^s being a Grandma, — and 
we felt that the responsibility was great ! 
Because now, being a grandmother, our Grand- 
mother knew all things — things that we were 
sure only grandmothers could know ; and she 
knew above all, and knew so positively, when 
to say '' Nonsense ! '' 

While we thought hard over all these strange 
matters, there came toward us Grandmother's 
own little black maid, Dilsey. 

As soon as she reached us, Dilsey said : Ole 
Miss say for all de grandchildren please to 
come to her room." 

''What do you suppose she wants?" asked 
the oldest grandchild. 

"What does Grandma want us for, Dilsey ?" 
asked the youngest grandchild of all. 

Dilsey only kept rolling her hands and arms 
in her blue-checked apron, as she always did, 
and said nothing, but she laughed as she 
skipped along a little behind the row of grand- 
children as they walked to the house. 


48 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''It isn't fair to ask Dilsey if Grandma 
didn't tell her to tell us," said Doc. Of course 
we all knew that, except perhaps the youngest 
grandchild of all. 

"We shall know soon enough," said Judge. 

Judge never did mind waiting for any- 
thing. It seemed to give him more time 
for thinking and enjoying. But to be sure 
we did know soon enough and we enjoyed 
the gifts all the more for not having known 
before. 

For as soon as we entered Grandmother's 
room we saw on her candle table (the table 
that tilted that way and this way, first for a 
fire-screen and then for a table) the most 
beautiful little chairs arranged in a row. The 
chairs were all alike, snow-white and deli- 
cately fairy-like in appearance. There were 
as many chairs as there were granddaughters. 

That is the good of being a girl, — there 
are things that girls can have that nobody 
ever thinks of giving to boys. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


49 


But Grandmother never left out the boys, 
either. On the corner of the same table were 
goose-quill pens. There was a goose-quill 
pen for each grandson. Grandmother had 
cut them herself in the ''good old-fashioned 
way.’' 

It was not until Grandmother had given 
the boys their pens and had shown them how 
to make more, that we who were girls realized 
that our chairs were made of goose-quills, too ! 
Our chairs were the prettiest presents. 

But the boys did not mind that, for they 
felt very important with their pens, and with 
knowing how to make others like them, for 
they thought they were, as Grandmother had 
said, "the young people who were helping to 
keep an old art from being lost.” 

It was not long before the boys learned, 
from looking carefully at our chairs, how to 
make feather chairs also. They were made, 
those chairs, of pins and of goose-quills 
stripped of all of the feathers except just 


50 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


enough to make the seat of the fine, snow- 
white chair. 

So afterwards the grandchildren who were 
boys often made goose-feather chairs for the 
grandchildren who were girls ; and we always 
called them Michaelmas chairs. 



CHAPTER VI 

CLOVER WREATHS 

We did not often go to the 
Far Pasture, those of us of the ten 
grandchildren who were little girls. 
That was our strange land. We 
knew that the boys found material 
there for the wonderful cane whis- 
tles, the hickory whistles, and the sweet-sound- 
ing cane flutes that they sometimes brought us. 
And wonder of wonders ! sometimes the boys 
found there a nest of partridge eggs. We who 
were little girls did not go often enough even to 
remember how things looked, except that every- 
thing in the Far Pasture was wide and large. 

The Near Pasture was our own, or we 
thought it was ! There the gentlest old cows 

51 


62 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


grazed, scarcely lifting their heads to look at 
us as we gathered clover blossoms from under 
their very noses. There were so many kinds 
of clover: there was the sharp, pointed, red 
bloom of the clover; there was the round, 
white bloom like a lady's powder puff ; there 
was the loose purple blossom ; there was the 
lowly little yellow clover ; there was the tall, 
swinging white mellilotus, as tall as the tallest 
of us, and so sweet that its leaves, as we ran 
through them, sent a perfume over all the 
earth, — at least we thought it went over all 
the earth. 

We made long chains and wreaths of clover. 
We made them of one color or of all colors. 
This was the way we made them : we gathered 
a heap of the blossoms with the slim, soft 
stems attached. The slim, green stem of one 
was tied close to the head of another blossom 
in a tight little knot of its own, each little stem 
tied close to the next little head, until a long 
wreath was made. Then we called out : 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 53 

^^Who shall be the Queen?'’ Then we an- 
swered: ''The one that first finds the four 
leaf clover shall be the Queen." 

Then we fell to hunting the field over for 
the lucky leaves. When one little girl found 
a four leaf clover, we all ran to the one with 
the lucky leaf and crowned her Queen of 
the Clover Band. We took the four leaf-^ 
clover that she had found and set it like a 
carved emerald in front of the clover blossom 
wreath that we placed on her head. Then 
for all the rest of that afternoon we obeyed 
our Queen. 

If she said: "Caro, sing a song!" then 
Caro had to sing her very best. If she said : 
"Doc, dance a highland fling!" then Doc 
danced a little highland fling as best he could. 

If the Queen of the Clover Band said: "Tell 
the best story you can," then we had a 
good story about knights and ladies or about 
fairies. To be sure there were some after- 
noons when two little girls found the lucky 


54 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


leaves at the same time ! Then we had two 
Queens. Two Queens of the Clover Band ! 
Dear me, that kept us busy. We were all 
busy bees in the clover then. You do not 
know how busy unless you have had to obey 
two Queens yourself, and to obey both at the 
same time ! It was then dance and sing and 
jump and run all in a whirl, just as fast as 
the two Queens with the four leaf clover on 
their brows could think ! Clover play was 
great fun, for we could have Queens all May 
Month as well as May Day. 

But to be sure there was one afternoon 
when none of us ten grandchildren found a 
four leaf clover, and yet that was the most 
memorable afternoon of all. As we were 
playing in the Near Pasture, who should come 
walking there but Aunts and the Captain 
and the Lieutenant. No sooner had they sat 
upon a grassy knoll. Aunts with their tiny 
slippers tucked so neatly under their ruffled 
skirts, than we all came, all ten of us, and sat 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


55 


in a semicircle about them. We felt that 
somehow we must play host and hostess in 
our favorite playground, that we must enter- 
tain our appreciated company. Appreciated, 
but, looking back, it hardly seemed appreci- 
ative company ! For after we had explained to 
the Captain how we made the finder of the four 
leaf clover our Queen, he pointed to some far 
distant places, urging us to seek there the lucky 
leaf. Readily we all scampered to the distant 
spots, where long and faithful search failed to 
reward us. Aunts laughing all the time at our 
fruitless endeavors. Once, when we returned 
from our farthest search. Youngest Aunt said 
to the Captain, — Amy heard her say it and 
reported to the rest, — ''Yes, if one lucky leaf 
is found, I promise, I promise to say 'Yes.' " 
Then to be sure the Captain searched as 
hard and as far afield as we, and as fruitlessly. 
Long since Other Aunt and the Lieutenant 
had left the knoll to walk up and down the 
path beside the brook. 


56 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 



After a particularly long search on the part 
of the Captain he returned to the knoll where 
Youngest Aunt sat laughing softly. The Cap- 
tain was very 
warm, for his gray, 
brass-buttoned 
coat was heavy and 
he was fanning 
himself with his 
military cap. He 
threw himself on 
the knoll beside 
Youngest Aunt, 
shaking his head 
sadly. We all, all 
^ ^ ten of us, came 

The Captain 

straggling after 
and seated ourselves in a semicircle about the 
knoll. 

''No leaf ? '' asked Aunt. 

"No leaf at all,'' said the Captain, sadly. 
Then Yoimgest Aunt lifted her hand from 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 57 

the grass where it had lain during all the Cap- 
tain's many warm searches, which he called 
his '^fruitless forages" and ''forced marches," 
and there — just under Aunt's hand — was a 
four leaf clover. 

It seemed to us, all ten of us, that Aunt 
might have told the Captain and so saved him 
from all those forced marches, but when we 
said so Aunt only laughed the more. And 
the Captain laughed when he saw it. "Your 
promise," said the Captain. "The four leaf 
clover is found, and at last — " 

"It was there all the time for you, — " said 
Youngest Aunt, softly, and when their fingers 
met in plucking it Aunt's cheeks were red as 
the reddest of the clover blossoms. 

"She must be the Queen of the Royal Leaf," 
cried Caro. 

"Queen of my heart," we thought we heard 
the Captain say, but we could not be sure, for 
Aunt cried so suddenly: "The children! re- 
member the children 1" 


58 WHEN WE WERE WEE 

Just then Other Aunt and the Lieutenant 
came slowly sauntering up from the brook 
path, and — strange indeed ran the luck that 
afternoon — Aunt was twirling two four leaf 
clovers in her fingers. 

When Youngest Aunt saw this, she cried 

And Other Aunt, at something she saw, or 
thought she saw, cried ''Oh, Oh!'' Then 
they all laughed happily, and it seemed to us 
a little foolishly, for, after all, had not many 
four leaf clovers been found there before ? 

Judge said, — I think he thought something 
serious lay beneath all the happy laughter, — 
Judge said : " It is rich ground that bears so 
many four leaf clovers." 

"Yes," said Doc, who always spoke very 
true and practical words ; " Yes, this is a prom- 
ising field." 

At that the Captain laughed more than ever 
and those four grown people went straight to 
our Grandmother upon their retxirn to the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 59 

house and told her that they had been to the 
Promising Field. 

After that the Near Pasture was always 
called the Promising Field. Why, we, the 
ten grandchildren, were to know only later, 
much later. But that afternoon, when none 
of us, that is, none of us ten grandchildren, had 
found a four leaf clover, was the afternoon 
that gave us most matter for talk together. 


CHAPTER VII 


HALLOWE^EN WITCHES 

The parlor at Grandmother's house was 
thirty feet long. It seemed to us grand- 
children a great room. There were folding 
doors between it and the small back parlor. 
We ten grandchildren could not imagine a 
longer space enclosed by walls than that back 
and front parlor when the folding doors were 
opened. One day in autumn both rooms were 
decorated in red and gold leaves, and we were 
told that that evening we might try our for- 
tunes. We did not understand exactly what 
that meant, but we thought it best to talk it 
over among ourselves before we asked. We 
went, all ten of us, to the round bed about 
which the green box bushes grew. There we 
dropped, each of us, into the side of a round, 
green box bush. The box bush stood stiff, and 


60 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 61 

held each child like a green chair with green back 
and arms all in one. Whenever we were found 
sitting in a semicircle in the box bushes we 
were told to get up at once or we would ruin 
the box bushes by sitting in them. We al- 
ways got up obediently, but there was always a 
''next time'' when we went back to the box 
bushes. So we sat there in a semicircle in 
the sun, and wondered what " trying fortunes " 
could be. 

Judge said that a fortune was money ; not 
the blue paper we thought all the world had 
now, which we heard the negroes call "Jeff 
Davis money," but yellow gold money, a 
great deal of it, which was found in old rusty 
pots or in caves, or rolled out of sail cloth 
bags in rich floods and heaps. That sounded 
pleasant and probable to us. 

Doc said that he had heard much talk among 
grown people of the fortunes of war. Young 
as we were, we, too, knew something of the 
fortunes of war, most of which seemed to us ill 


62 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


fortunes, and we were not pleased with that 
idea, so we turned about uneasily in our box 
bush chairs. 

Then the next oldest grandchild came to our 
rescue, as she often did, for much reading out 
of books is, after all, good for something. 
She said she had often read that Fortune was 
a fairy prince. Now we liked that ! But we 
wondered what we would do if fairy princes 
came. We had now in the house a Lieutenant 
and a Captain, and we hardly knew what we 
ought to do with them. If it had not been for 
Aunts, the responsibility would have been too 
great for us. We now began to wonder with 
one accord what they were doing — the Cap- 
tain and the Lieutenant. Our sense of duty 
rose within us, and we determined, the six of 
us who were girls, to go to see if they were 
being properly entertained. The boys refused 
to obey this fancied call of duty, and instead 
they went to the Far Pasture to play. 

In what a plight we found the Captain and 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


63 


the Lieutenant ! The Captain and one Aunt 
were at one end of the long parlor. He was 
holding on his hands a hank of home-grown, 
home-spun, home-dyed wool, while Aunt 
wrapped the thread off his hands into a ball. 

At the other end of the back parlor the 
Other Aunt and the Lieutenant were sitting. 
He was doing absolutely nothing — only 
watching her as she made tatting. 

We felt that we had not come to the rescue 
a moment too soon. We knew how lonely 
we should have felt in such a plight. On the 
instant we divided our forces evenly and went 
to the rescue of both parties, besieged, we felt 
sure, with the terror of loneliness. Three of 
us went to where the Youngest Aunt and the 
Captain were winding wool, and we seated 
ourselves in a row on the ottoman in front of 
them. 

The other three of us dragged three straight- 
backed parlor chairs in front of Aunt and the 
Lieutenant. They need not be lonely now! 


64 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Then the four of them, who had seemed so 
silent but a moment before, all at once began 
to talk. They told us of the fortunes to be 
told on Hallowe'en night. They were going 
to hang up a cross beam with a candle at one 
end and an apple at the other. As the swing- 
ing beam turned we were to try to bite the 
apple as a sign for good luck, or a fairy prince, 
or something to come. We were to dive our 
heads into a tub of water in which apples 
were floating, and to try to bite those floating 
apples. Or we could bum nuts on the hearth, 
or wind a strand of yarn from a ball of blue 
wool, and, throwing one end out of a window, 
call, '"Who holds?" The fairy prince might 
be the one ''who held." 

The youngest granddaughter cried out in 
eager interest: "Just as the Captain holds 
the yam now ! " 

And the eldest grandchild cried: "Of 
course, they are rehearsing." 

For we knew much of rehearsing. We had 
often acted charades ourselves. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


65 



The Lieutenant said ''Yes/' and laughed 
very much, but the Captain did not laugh at 
all. Then Elise said that in books every fairy 
prince seemed to 
be in love. She 
hoped one would 
come that night, 
for she had always 
wished to see some 
one in love. 

"But," sug- 
gested the Lieu- 
tenant, "perhaps 
if you saw some 
one in love you 
might not know 
it." 

" But suppose he should tell me that he was," 
argued Elise. 

"That is surely what he would wish to do," 
said the Lieutenant. 

"Oh," cried Elise, — for what better permis- 


The Lieutenant 


66 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


sion could she have had to ask a question, — 
''perhaps you are in love 

"Fie, Elise,'' cried Aunt. 

But the brave Lieutenant did not falter, al- 
though the Captain was laughing now. " Yes,'' 
he said, "I am in love." 

"But," said Elise, with a little touch of 
disappointment, "you do not look any different 
from the way you looked when I first saw you." 

"Maybe, Elise, he has been in love since 
the first day you saw him," suggested the 
first grandchild. 

The Lieutenant bowed very low to Elise, 
and said: "How could' it be otherwise? I 
have been in love since the first moment I 
saw you!" 

The Lieutenant's eyes twinkled queerly, but 
Elise never thought of the possibility of any 
one's laughing at her, she was always so much 
in earnest herself, so she sat undisturbed in 
the straight-backed parlor chair and smiled 
sweetly. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


67 


^'Yes/' said the Lieutenant very softly, ''I 
think a certain little lady has as much sun- 
shine in her heart as on her hair, as has 
some one else I 
know, and that, 
perhaps, is the rea- 
son why I fell in 
love/^ 

But we thought 
no more of fairy 
princes or of for- 
tunes, because just 
then the boys came 
running in. They 
came from the Far 
Pasture where they 

1 , T . Elise 

had been playing, 

and they brought the funniest little midgets 
with them ! 

They had each made a little imp of a crea- 
ture out of dry brown cockle-burrs. The 
head was a cockle-burr with bead eyes. Each 



68 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


imp wore a red sumach leaf, pinned into a 
dunce cap. Two cockle-burrs made each arm, 
another made a hand, two cockle-burrs made 
each leg, and one made each foot. They wore 
coats of two sweet gum leaves pinned together, 
one leaf red and one yellow. The points of the 
leaves fell about them in an odd way. 

The Lieutenant got up and took all the 
midgets from the boys and put them among 
the gold and yellow boughs that decorated the 
parlor, so that they might, he said, look on at 
the trying of fortunes that evening. Aunts 
called the little imps Hallowe’en witches. 
The boys offered to show us how to make more 
of them, and we all ran to the edge of the Far 
Pasture to gather cockle-burrs. 

We went with an easy conscience, because 
we thought we had done well toward enter- 
taining company. 

What Aunts and Company thought we did 
not know. 


CHAPTER VIII 


TED’S THANKSGIVING 

Ted felt that he had never looked forward 
to a day with so many hopes. It was to be a 
Thanksgiving Day. That was a new sort of a 
day to Ted, new indeed to all of us ; a day of 
thanks appointed by some high, if rather local 
dignitary, a forerunner of a Thanksgiving 
Day that was many years later to become a 
national institution appointed by presidents 
of a Union to which we were now outsiders. 
But we did not foresee that, for we were now 
out of the Union, and we believed that we 
were to be forever a nation to ourselves ! 
No one had more plans for that especial new 
Thanksgiving Day than Ted. 

And now he knew that not one of his plans 
could be carried out on that day, because he 
lay ill of a slow fever that would keep coming 

69 


70 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


back to visit him every morning at ten and 
every afternoon at five. Ted grew so tired of 
that unwelcome little fever visitor. 

It seemed to him that one of the worst 
trials of his enforced imprisonment in his 
mother's room was that he could hear, through 
the open window of the room, the sounds of 
stirring and ''making up" of all sorts of good 
things to eat, things unusually good for these 
War times. Ted was not just then at our 
Grandmother's house, but at his other Grand- 
mother's house in a small town. We often 
wondered how Ted, small and gentle as he 
was, almost the smallest of us ten grand- 
children, could bear up under the great re- 
sponsibility and honor of having two Grand- 
mothers. 

The room that his mother had there was on 
the wing that reached toward the kitchen, for 
of course all the kitchens in those days were 
apart from the house proper, and were good- 
sized houses in themselves. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 71 

When Ted was at his other Grandmother's 
he was the only child in the house, and he 
learned many ways of amusing himself, so 
perhaps it was not as hard for him to stay 
alone in one room as it would have been for 
one of us, who had never in all our lives, or at 
least not in our remembrance, been the only 
child in the house. 

One of his amusements at this time was 
to 'Took over" the spools of thread in his 
mother's "two-storied work basket." The 
spools were always in the top story of the bas- 
ket, and small rolls of scraps of colored cloth 
were in the bottom story of the basket. Ted's 
mother sat at the window in her low wicker 
chair and sewed and mended and darned a 
great part of the day, for there was much of 
such work to be done in those days, as well as 
the heavier weaving and spinning necessary 
in War-time. 

It seemed to Ted, as he lay there and looked 
at his mother sewing, that almost every sec- 


72 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


ond, — no, maybe it was every minute, or 
maybe every other minute, — old Aunt Zilphy, 
the cook, came to the window, to say to 
Mother: ''Young Miss, I have stoned de 
raisins,'' or "Young Miss, I have blanched de 
almonds." Or to ask: "Young Miss, is you 
ready to make de roses and de curley-my- 
cues on de cakes? De icing is mos' done." 
"Ah, me," sighed Ted, when he heard of all 
those good things in the making; "if I could 
only eat raisins and nuts, I would not mind 
missing the rest." 

You see, raisins and almonds were very rare, 
for, like most other things, they had to run 
the blockade. Only home-raised, plantation 
things were plentiful with us then. 

It happened, after all, that just the day be- 
fore the day that was to be Thanksgiving Day 
the good doctor said : "No fever." 

Then Ted's mother said : " Dear Ted, it is 
to be our Thanksgiving Day after all." 

Ted said : " Then I can eat raisins and nuts." 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 73 

But the doctor said : ''My, my, my ! How 
does he come to think that V 

And Ted's mother said: "Dear me, dear 
me! What shall we do?" 

Ted, who really felt worse than when the 
fever was with him, thought he must cry 
when the doctor said: "Not a nut, Ted, not 
a nut." 

Ted was going to retreat slowly, if retreat 
he must, contending every point, so he said : 
"Raisins, doctor?" 

The good doctor, who must have seen that 
Ted was about to cry, said : "My, my, my ! " 

Ted's mother then said for him — Ted told 
us all this when he was well enough to come 
again to our Grandmother's : — "doctor, two ? 
or three, — only — " 

But Ted said : " Six." 

Then the doctor, looking very hard at Ted, 
who was winking so as not to cry, said : " If 
there is no fever when I come back — six." 

Ted was glad, but he sighed, too, for the 


74 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


next minute he thought how few six raisins 
were for a boy as big as he, a boy big enough to 
have four pockets when he was up and dressed. 

Four pockets ! Ted wished that he were up. 
An Alabama sling shot in one pocket, pebbles 
to shoot in it in another pocket, a penny and 
a picayune and a clean handkerchief in the 
third pocket, for Ted's mother made him 
promise to keep one pocket always fresh for 
a clean handkerchief; and nobody, nobody, 
nobody knew what Ted did keep in that other 
pocket: nails and strings and bullets and 
melted lead and snail shells and pieces of India 
rubber, — and what not — ! 

However, six raisins were something to think 
about, and that was a comfort when you had 
to stay all day upon one cot in one room. So 
Ted thought a great deal about the six raisins. 

'' Mother," Ted said, ''Mother, I don't 
think I can enjoy six raisins very much, do 
you?" 

But Ted's mother told him not to scorn a 



75 


Ted was Propped up on the Pillows 




76 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


small good in wishing for a greater and im- 
possible one. 

The next day the queer little fever kept 
away, and how thankful Ted's mother and his 
other Grandmother and everybody was ! So 
Ted was happy because everybody else was, 
Ted was that way. Ted had said: ''I will 
wait for my six raisins until it is nuts-and- 
raisins time at the table for everybody." 

So when nuts and raisins came to the table, 
Ted's mother herself left the table to take 
Ted his six raisins. 

Ted was propped up on pillows waiting for 
her, and for the six raisins. She had in her 
hand a tiny silver tray, and over the tray was 
a tiny linen doily, and a red rosebud lay on 
top of the doily. Ted tried to look as cheerful 
(so he told us) as his mother was looking, but 
just at that moment six raisins had never 
seemed so few ! 

He lifted the little doily, and looked under 
it, and then he cried out : ''Oh, Mother !" 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 77 

What do you think Ted saw ? 

Six tiny turtles in a row. 

Their tiny backs were of a reddish brown, 
rough and corrugated as real turtle-backs are. 
Each turtle had a tiny white head with black 
eyes. Each turtle had four little white feet, 
just showing from under their rough shells. 
Each turtle had a little white tail, — they 
looked for all the world like real, sure enough, 
live turtles. 

Weak as Ted was, he laughed and laughed, 
and it seemed to him (so he told us) that the 
tiny turtles laughed back at him out of their 
little black-ink-dot eyes. 

Then Ted said : ''Mother, what are they 

Ted's mother said: "Six raisins." 

"But," said Ted, "they are so splendid." 

But he would not eat them after all. He 
just looked at them and turned their tiny 
heads (which were bits of blanched almond 
with ink-dot eyes) this way and that way to 
make them look in different directions; and 


78 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


by giving a touch to their almond legs he could 
make them look as if they were creeping, as 
turtles creep, or running as slowly as turtles 
run, or just resting. 

When he had enjoyed them a long time, he 
asked his mother to put them away so that he 
could enjoy them to-morrow and other days, 
and he said to his mother : Mother, I never 
thought anybody could enjoy six raisins so 
very much; did you?'' 


CHAPTER IX 


A THANKSGIVING GENTLEMAN 

Caro and Em sat at one end of the long 
arbor, the butter-bean arbor in Grandmother's 
garden. The arbor was a long green tunnel, 
cool and shady even at midday. It was a 
favorite play-place for the ten grandchildren ; 
but to-day only Caro and Em were there. 
That day Grandmother had talked to the 
children about the harvest home festivals of 
long ago. She told us how, in the good old 
days, the slaves were allowed to hold high 
festival at the Quarters how they came to the 
Great House on those festive occasions, and, 
calling out the Master, lifted him on to the 
shoulders of four of the strongest slaves and 
carried him about the green in front of the 
House, with songs of thanksgiving. Now all 
the masters had gone to the War, but the crops 


79 


80 WHEN WE WERE WEE 

had been good and the cribs and cotton houses 
were filled to overflowing, and Grandmother 
said that in spite of war and of deprivation of 
foreign goods, we ought at this season to have 
a spirit of thanksgiving. Judge went off, we 
felt sure, to meditate upon the matter. Doubt- 
less we should, all ten of us, later profit by his 
thoughts ; if we did not. Judge would make us 
feel that it was our own fault. 

Em and Caro had gone to the bean arbor, 
and there they tried to get up a Thanksgiving 
spirit. It was very hard work for little girls 
who did not know how. They each rolled up 
a large pumpkin, from the newly gathered 
heap at the end of the arbor, and sat upon it. 
''Now,'' said Caro, "we are like two prin- 
cesses seated upon ottomans of gold in a long 
palace hall of glittering malachite." 

"Oh, Caro, you think of such strange 
things," said Em; "you ought to be thankful 
for that, for it saves so much reading just to be 
able to think up tales for yourself." 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 81 

''Well/' said Caro, "then I will be thank- 
ful, and, if you are thankful about it, too, why 
then, Em, we have, without any trouble, a 
spirit of thanksgiving." 

" Oh, it can't be just that," said Em. " If 
Judge were here we might ask him — " 

But the little boy coming down the garden 
walk was Doc and not Judge, and it was no 
use asking Doc about anything that you 
could not see with your eyes or touch with 
your hands. Doc cared only for practical 
things. Just as he reached the arbor his 
foot caught on something, and he stopped 
to loosen it. " It's an old devil's-claw," said 
he, holding up the thing that had caught 
his foot. 

"I thought they were martynia," said Em. 

" So many things have two and even three 
names," said Caro. 

Em reached for the martynia, and said : " Oh, 
how funny it looks, like an old man with 
crooked feet." She set it up against one of 


82 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 



the poles of the arbor. It's a Thanksgiving 
visitor come to see us." 

' ' Where is its head ? ' ' asked Doc. Doc could 
not imagine things. Caro reached through the 
bean vines to where 
the gherkins grew, 
and pulled off a 
gherkin that was 
so old that it was 
turning yellow. 
She stuck it on the 
stem of the mar- 
tynia, and said : 
' ' There is its head . ' ' 

''Now," said 
Em, "we will name 
him Mr. Gherkin 

One of the Ten 

Martynia." 

"That is a fine name," said Caro; "now 
shut your eyes and I will dress him as he should 
be." Then Em and Doc shut their eyes, and 
when Caro called to them to open their eyes 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 83 

the Thanksgiving gentleman was dressed as 
he should be. He had two round spice eyes, 
a clove stuck in long-ways for a nose, a slice 
of red pepper for his mouth, and seeds of the 
pepper for his teeth. Half of a large red bell 
pepper made his cap, a cap like an Eastern fez. 
Another martynia put around the first made 
two claw-like arms, and some bean leaves 
hung like a cape about the queer gentleman. 
When Em and Doc saw the queer little 
gentleman, they laughed and laughed. Caro 
laughed too, but then she said: ''He doesn't 
look funny to me any more." 

"Why?" said Em. 

"He looks so dry and old," said Caro. 

"He misses being where he ought to be," 
said Doc. 

"Why, where ought he to be ? " said Em. 

"In the pickle jar," said Caro. 

"Oh, he is too old for the pickle jar," said 
Em. 

"That's just what he is sorry about," said 


84 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Caro; ''he thinks it is hard to be too old 
to carry out the purpose for which he was 
created/' 

"Dear me," sighed Em, looking dejectedly 
at the queer gentleman. 

"But, Caro," said Doc; "anyhow he has 
with him the things he would have around 
him in the pickle jar, pepper, spice, and 
cloves." 

"Oh, Doc, that is true," cried Em; "Fm 
so glad, Fm sure he may be thankful, too." 

"Let's ask him," said Caro, "if he can now 
be thankful for small mercies — " 

So the three children took hands and stood 
in front of Mr. Gherkin Martynia, whose queer 
red fez made him look like a real Grand Turk, 
and they said, bowing all together: "Mr. 
Gherkin Martynia, we have done all that we 
could for you. In spite of your being too old 
for the pickle jar, we have put the nice things 
and the spice things of the pickle jar about 
you. Are you happier ? " 



Two OF THE Ten 



\ 







86 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Then the three lifted themselves from their 
very deep bows and stood in silence before the 
queer gentleman. ''Perhaps — maybe — '' 
suggested Caro; "it might have been the 
shadow of a leaf, but it seemed to me that 
perhaps — maybe — he bowed his head.'' 

"Oh," said Em. 

"If he did," said Caro, "we might as well 
believe that he is happier, and that he 
has some sort of a thanksgiving spirit for 
himself." 

"Oh, I hope so !" said Em. 

"Shall we take him and show him to the 
others. Doc?" asked Caro; "for there is our 
children's table bell ringing now." 

"No, let him alone," said Doc; "the sight 
of really truly pickles might make him sad 
again, and we don't want that." 

"Indeed we don't," declared Em, upon 
whose soul Mr. Gherkin Martynia dejection 
had weighed heavily. So the three children 
ran in to the children's table, and that night 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


87 


a rain came up and washed Mr. Gherkin 
Martynia off down the bean arbor path and 
into the brook, away, away, and away, and 
neither Caro, nor Doc, nor even Em, ever 
thought of him any more. 


CHAPTER X 


THE CHRISTMAS STALK 

Em sat under the wide fig-tree, thinking. 

She had had a great many toys that morn- 
ing, and they were real toys, no ''pretend'’ 
about them. For all the best old toys in the 
family had been brought from their hiding- 
places and sent on to us, because we had 
had no real toys since War-time. The swans 
really followed the magnet round and round 
in the basin of water ! The toy wagons really 
ran ! But do you know, Em was already tired 
of them all ! and yet she felt ashamed of being 
tired, even the least bit tired, of such wonder- 
ful things. So she sat under the wide fig-tree 
and thought. 

Presently through the trees of the orchard 
she saw Caro coming. Caro was coming 
straight to the fig-tree, the wide one where 


88 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 89 

Em sat thinking. Caro, being older than 
Em, knew better than Em how tired one grows 
of even the prettiest toys. 

Em watched her coming across the orchard. 

Caro carried a dry, yellow corn-shuck in her 
hand. 

She stood in front of Em where she sat under 
the wide fig-tree : '' Em, Tm going to tell you 
a story with some maybe in it.'' 

Oh," said Em, '' I'm so glad ! And Caro, 
sometimes I think those with maybe's in them 
are better than those with the all-sures." 

''Well, that is only sometimes," said Caro. 

" Won't you sit down ? " said Em, for she 
was a very polite little girl, — even to her 
sister. 

"No," said Caro; "I'll stand up." And 
Caro stood up with her red curls almost touch- 
ing the broad leaves of the fig-tree, for, though 
it was Christmas Day, no heavy frost had 
fallen in Alabama, and the fig leaves were 
still green. 


90 WHEN WE WERE WEE 

''You know/' began Caro, "the field hands 
do not knock down and bum the com stalks 
until January, when they begin to get ready 
for next year's plowing." 

"Yes, I know," said Em. 

"Well, you know how the fodder is pulled 
in midsummer, and tied on to the stalk, and 
how the hands haul the fodder to the cribs 
and bams?" 

"Yes, and isn't it fun to get in the crib loft, 
while the men are throwing up the bundles 
of fodder, and counting the hundreds, — 
isn't it fun to play in the bundles and let them 
fall all over us !" 

"Yes, it is fun," said Caro. "Then, you 
know how the bom in the shuck is left on the 
stalk in the fields until it is quite dry." 

"Yes," said Em; "and it is fun to ride 
from the fields on the wagons full of com when 
Uncle Jake drives them in — " 

"Yes, that is the most fun," said Caro; 
"and suppose, Em, that there should be 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


91 


one — just one — stalk left in the comer of 
the fence where the hands could not see it, 
under the dry blackberry bushes, and the 
sarsaparilla vines, you know, and suppose it 
should be left with ears still on it, and suppose 
that one stalk should be 'The Christmas 
stalk' — " 

"Would the ears on it be different from any 
other ears of com ? " asked Em. 

"They might be," said Caro. 

"Oh," said Em ; "Caro, is that one in your 
hand from the — 'Christmas stalk'?" 

"It might be," said Caro. 

"Is the ear on it red?" asked Em. 

"Pshaw," said Caro; "there are red ears 
all the time, any time. I know Dicie has 
brought us a hundred red ears from the com 
shuckings." 

"Yes, I suppose she has," said Em. 

"This is a young lady," said Caro. 

"A young lady !" cried Em. 

"Don't you see that it is a young lady?" 


92 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''We might pretend so/' said Em, cheer- 
fully; "and that ridgy stem you are holding 
her by might be her head — but — " 

"But what?" 

"She wouldn't look much like one — " 

"Well, whether she looks like one to you 
or not, there is a young lady here." Caro 
tapped the shuck so positively that Em was 
deeply impressed, — but still the shuck did 
not look like a young lady. Em thought it 
best not to say anything more just yet. 

"She has an Indian name," said Caro. 

"Oh, like the Virginians !" said Em. 

" Only those who are related to Pocahontas 
have Indian names," corrected Caro. 

"I thought they were all related to Poca- 
hontas, so many have told me they were kin 
to her," said Em. 

"All who are related tell you so," said 
Caro ; "and those who are not don't say any- 
thing about it." 

"Oh !" said Em. 


I 


\ 



93 









94 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''Well, this young lady's name is 'Miss 
Maize' ! " 

"That is a very pretty name," said Em. 

"That is what the Indians called her," said 
Caro ; "and now if you want to, you may be 
the one to take her out of the shuck — " 

And Caro turned the shuck around. 

"Oh," cried Em. She had thought of 
fairies and of things like that all her life, — 
and had always expected to see a fairy beneath 
every mushroom under which she peeped, — 
but this black-eyed young lady with her real 
auburn fluffy hair, and her red mouth, all 
fully dressed in golden stuff, was something 
more than she had ever expected to see. Caro 
held out the shuck to her, but she could not 
touch it. It was too wonderful. The young 
lady was lying close to the shuck, too, just 
as an ear of corn lies. 

"You won't take her out?" said Caro. 

"Caro, I don't think I can/' said Em, 
pleasurable awe in her tones. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


95 


''Well, here,_she is,'^ said Caro. And she 
gently opened the shuck, and lifted out the 
young lady, and stood her on the ground under 
the wide fig-tree. 

Whether the young lady's dress was of stiff 
cloth of gold, or of richest silk, Em did not 
quite know yet — but the dress was stiff and 
crisp enough to stand alone. 

"And the bonnet — " gasped Em, when she 
had breath enough to speak. 

"Yes, she is a Quakeress," said Caro. 

"Oh !" said Em, for she thought that this 
young lady was wonderful enough to be related 
to'’ Pocahontas and to be a Quakeress, too. 

"But I believe it is the Shakers, and maybe 
not the Quakers, that wear such bonnets," 
said Caro, thoughtfully. 

" Well, it doesn't make any difference 
which," said Em; "for either way she is 
beautiful." 

"And she grew on the Christmas stalk," 
said Caro. 


96 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


I believe it/' said Em. 

'' Now, ril tell you really how it was that 
she grew," said Caro ; '' she is made of corn 
pith." • 

''Oh,"- said Em. 

"Yes, and her stiff golden dress is the clean 
inside of a shuck from the ear. And when 
you pull off the shuck from the stem it fits 
around so — as if it were made to go around a 
waist, and so two pieces of shuck make a 
skirt." 

"Oh, I see," said Em. 

" Then two more cut shorter make an over- 
skirt," said Caro; "and the other end of the 
shuck curves in so as to fit the neck, and there 
is her cape- waist." 

" Oh, yes," said Em. 

" Her arms are two little pieces of outside 
cornstalk, — and her sleeves are, of course, 
cut out of the scraps of cloth-of-gold left from 
cutting her skirts and waist." 

"She is beautiful," said Em. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


97 


''Her eyes are two black-headed pins. I 
took a dip out of mother's black ink for her 
lashes and brows, and a dip out of her red ink 
for her mouth ; and her bonnet — " 

" Oh, her bonnet ! " said Em. 

" Well, the end of a small shuck fitted exactly 
for that ! I only had to put on a small flap 
behind, and the flowers were easily cut out of 
the shuck." 

"After all," said Em, with a sigh of great 
delight, "Miss Maize did somehow grow on 
the Christmas stalk." 

" Yes, she did," said Caro. 

"Caro," said Em, very thoughtfully, "I 
like her better than I do all the real toys. I 
suppose it is because we have had pretend toys 
so long that we like that kind best." 

" Maybe so," said Caro. " Or maybe they 
are best for children — for War-time children, 
anyhow." 


CHAPTER XI 


A QUEER HATCHING 

We always felt serious on Easter Eve, we 
grandchildren. We practised our Easter carols 
on Easter Eve. This practising was done in an 
arbor in the far woodland, — an arbor that our 
Aunts called Sans Souci. No one from the 
house could hear our singing from the arbor, so 
on Easter morning our carols were a surprise to 
our mothers and our Grandmother, when we 
sang them outside of their bedroom windows. 
Only our two younger aunts knew of the carols. 
They had to know, because they taught them 
to us. It was strange that the other grown- 
up people were so delightfully surprised every 
time, for we did the same way every year; 
yet surprised they always were on Easter 
Morning. We, of course, were glad that we 
had such a surprise for them ! 

98 



A Queer Hatching 

99 


I 

) 

> > 
) ) 

> > ,> 


> 


> 



100 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


As has been said, we always felt serious on 
Easter Eve. This evening we felt more serious 
than usual. Every Easter before this there 
had always been an egg hunt. It came just 
'after the singing of the carols outside the win- 
dows. When we had so delightfully sur- 
prised the grown people, we were always 
equally surprised ourselves by finding, in all 
sorts of unexpected places, the eggs that the 
Easter Hen had laid. Sometimes we found 
them, beautiful eggs of all colors, hidden in 
the box bushes that grew around the circular 
bed, in the midst of which stood the sun-dial. 
Sometimes we found the eggs, half hidden in 
moss and fern, by the side of the brook that 
ran through the back of Grandmother's gar- 
den. Sometimes even, the boys (for four of 
us grandchildren were boys and six were 
girls) climbed up into a tree and found big, 
bright-colored eggs in the last years' nests left 
by the mocking-birds. So, no matter how 
serious we had felt on every other Easter Even- 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


101 


ing before this, we could cheer ourselves by 
thinking of the egg hunt on the morrow. But 
on this Easter Eve Grandmother had said: 
^^No, there will be no Easter eggs this year. 
These children are too old for Easter eggs.'' 

Well, Grandmother always spoke the truth. 
Whatever Grandmother said, that thing would 
surely happen, or had already happened. 
Well, well ! Something had happened to us, 
and until that minute we had not known it ! 
We had grown too old for Easter eggs ! 

We sat in a row on the top step of the 
long, broad flight of steps that led from the 
flower garden to the broad piazza, on which 
the French windows of the parlor opened. 
We sat in a row looking at the budding lilies 
in the garden beyond, and we felt very serious 
indeed. 

Judge spoke first: ''It is very strange," 
he said, "that we all grew too old at once." 

"How do you mean?'.' asked Doc, who did 
not think as much or as fast as Judge did. 


102 WHEN WE WERE WEE 

''Well, you see/' said Judge; "you are 
nearly fourteen, and Willy-boy is only four/' 

"Oh, I see," said Doc; "and all at once we 
were both too old !" 

"It is that way," said Amy; "it is obliged 
to be that way with Easter eggs, because 
Grandmother has said so." 

"Of course," said Judge; "it is that way. 
Only it is strange." 

"It seems strange to us," said Em; "be- 
cause it has never happened to us before." 

"It is that way with things when they are 
new," said Caro. "Now Mother says that 
war seems strange to her, with everybody, 
that is all the men-*people, doing nothing, 
nothing at all but having battles. But that 
doesn't seem strange to me. What else could 
the men-people be doing? I never heard of 
men-people doing anything but marching, 
holding forts, having furloughs, and fighting 
battles. Mother says that war doesn't seem 
strange to us because we can't remember very 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


103 


far back, and have known only war, but 
Mother says she has known peace/' 

''Well," said Doc, "the only way to do is 
just to get used to things as they are." 

Then Ted, who was little and round and who 
tried to be happy about everything, said: 
"Let's play 'I spy' in the yard until Grandma 
sends Dilsey to ring our go-to-bed-bell." 

So we ran into the yard to hide, all but Doc. 
He was to be first counter. He sat on the 
comer of the bottom step (that was to be the 
base), and shut his eyes. He had to count a 
hundred before he could open his eyes and 
begin to seek us in our hiding-places. We 
told him to count a hundred just straight 
along and aloud, by ones, — not by tens, nor 
by fives, nor by the very fast way: "Ten! 
ten ! double ten ! forty-five and fifteen 1" 

So we played "I spy" until our go-to-bed- 
bell rang, and the next morning we were up 
bright and early to sing our carols outside the 
windows. We sang at Grandmother's win- 


104 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


dow last. We sang our best and brightest 
carol there. No sooner had we finished sing- 
ing than Dilsey, Grandmother's own black 
maid, who had been peeping at us from be- 
tween the curtains of Grandmother's windows, 
came to the door of Grandmother's room and 
fiung it wide open, and said : — 

'' Little Ladies and Gen'lemen ! Ole Miss 
say : ' Come in ! ' " 

We were amazed. Grandmother's door 
was open ; it was always open ; few, if indeed 
any of us ten grandchildren, had ever seen 
that door shut. But was it possible that 
Grandmother was ready to give us our morn- 
ing audience at this early hour ? We looked 
at one another all down the row of the ten 
of us. 

Dilsey laughed and said again : '' Ole Miss 
say y'all come in. I 'spec' the Easter hen 
has hatched." 

We went in. 

We were surprised at what we saw. There 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


105 


on Grandmother's candle-table were ten of the 
queerest birds we had ever seen ! 

There was a hollow tree-trunk, built of bark, 
and just in front of that hollow tree were 
seated two wee owls. Their gray wings were 
spread out from their sides, and they looked 
with wise eyes toward each other. Next to 
the hollow tree there was a small piece of rail 
fence, built of bits of kindling wood, and on the 
top rail of the fence sat two black buzzards ! 
buzzards with shoulders humped up, just as 
real buzzards hump up their shoulders ! On 
the top of the table stood a turkey gobbler with 
outspread wings and tail, and opposite to him 
was a peacock, in all the glittering glory of 
his fan-shaped tail and wide wings. There 
was also a deep saucer with moss around it, 
and a snow-white swan floated on the water 
in the saucer. Over on one side of the table 
was a white gander, and beside him an 
old gray goose. From a thread suspended 
over the table an eagle was poised on open 


106 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


wings hanging over all the rest of the curi- 
ous birds. 

It was indeed a queer hatching. 

We stood, all ten of us, around the table, and i 
looked with wondering eyes at the strange 
birds. 

''Each take one,'' said Grandmother. "See 
how they are made." 

"Made!" we cried. Each one of us ten 
grandchildren cried: "Made!" 

"Take them and run away," said Grand- 
mother. 

And we did. 

And after all those birds were Easter eggs ! 
The eggs were dyed, or painted, in different 
colors. Those that were made into buzzards 
were dyed black. Those that were made into 
owls were gray. The turkey cock was brown, 
the peacock, blue, and so on through the list 
of birds. Each egg was colored to match the 
bird it was to represent. The wings, the 
tails, the heads, and the necks were made of 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


107 


different colored tissue papers, folded and 
twisted into the proper shapes. The birds 
all had bead eyes sewed in. The legs and 
feet of the birds were made of matches wound 
with yellow silk thread. These were glued 
to the eggs with sealing wax, as were the 
wings, tails, and heads of folded tissue 
paper. 

When we had all admired our birds. Doc 
said : '' I am glad, after all, that we are too 
old for easter egg hunts.'' 

Ted said : '' I am glad we all grew too old 
just at one time, all ten of us together." 


CHAPTER XII 


A DOWNY CHICK 

It was the very next Easter after we had 
suddenly, all ten of us at once, grown too old 
for hunting colored Easter eggs, that Ted's 
mother, brought him back to our Grand- 
mother's so that we could all be together at 
Easter. Ted had another Grandmother ; the 
wonder of that never ceased for us, — two 
Grandmothers ! That Grandmother lived in 
a town, and when Ted was not living with us 
and our Grandmother, he was living there in 
town with his Other Grandmother. 

All Easter morning we had listened for the 

carriage that was to bring Ted and his mother, 

* 

and when we heard the pleasant grating sound, 
a quarter of a mile away, as the wheels 
crunched down the gravel hill, we all scam- 
pered to the gate to meet Ted and his mother. 


108 



109 


The Other Grandmother’s Home 









no 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


/ 


Aunts ran to the gate, too, and even our 
mothers. Because that was the way that we 
did when any one came to see us : we ran to the 
gate to meet them. All but Grandmother : she 
sat in her chair in the corner by the fire, with 
her feet on the footstool and the round cushion 
at her back, and all the people who came, who- 
ever they were, went first to Grandmother's 
room and said ''how do you do," to her. 
Sometimes it was Bishops who came, sometimes 
Generals, sometimes only the Captain and the 
Lieutenant, sometimes kinsfolk, as it was to- 
day; but whoever it was, they always went 
first to Grandmother's room to speak to her. 

While the servants were taking the bags 
and portmanteaus and the bonnet-box from 
the rack and boot of the carriage, Ted whis- 
pered to us that he had something to show us. 
He said that it was a gift to him, but that all 
of us could have it partly for ours, too. 

''All of us can have it partly for ours?" 
asked Willy-boy. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 111 

And Ted said : ''Yes, all of us/' 

So we were naturally anxious to see what the 
gift might be. We followed Ted's mother to 
Grandmother's room, and even before Aunts 
could unfasten and take off her bonnet and 
veil Ted was asking her for the white box, 
the small white box, his box. He stood by 
her chair and kept whispering in her ear and 
bumping his head against Aunts' elbows as 
they were trying to take off the bonnet and 
veil. 

Then Ted's mother said : " Go, child ! Go 
and bring me the carpet-bag. Let me see — 
— the flowered one !" 

When she had opened the carpet-bag she 
gave into Ted's hand a small white box, and 
said : "Now, child !" 

Doc, who always liked things done decently 
and in order, began to whisper to us: "The 
arbor, — let's go to the Honeysuckle Arbor." 

Amy, who always helped Doc with his or- 
dering of things, began to nudge us with her 


112 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


elbows as we stood all in a bunch, and to say : 
''Yes, the arbor/' 

We went, all of us, to the arbor, and stood 
about Ted, who had seated himself on the 



round seat in the middle of the arbor. Ted 
held the box, and said : "Yesterday I went to 
see somebody I am very fond of, and Mother 
is fond of her too, and I told her how last 
Easter we had all grown too old to hunt Easter 
eggs, and how, after we had sung our carols, 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


113 


we had been asked to come into Grandmother's 
room to find there what Aunts called a queer 
hatching. The Somebody was very much 
interested in that idea. She said what I told 
her reminded her of something, and that she 
would send it to me early on Easter morning 
I before we started for our Easter dinner here, 
and she did." 

Ted began to untie the string about the box. 
Ted looked at us very solemnly, a way he often 
had, and said: ''Mother says the Somebody 
who gave me this is a very lovely person, and 
she is — she is — a Maiden Lady." 

Now that was something none of us had 
heard of before — a Maiden Lady. But it 
sounded very pleasant. The next oldest 
grandchild gave a gasp, and we knew that 
meant that she had suddenly thought of 
something that she had read in the books over 
which she was always poring. We looked at 
her and waited for her to speak. " It sounds 
like King Arthur's Table," she said; "the 


114 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Maidens have their hair flowing, with ribbons 
bound across their brows, though they are 
quite grown, and in picture books they are 
often sitting on deep window-seats with their 
hands clasped low on their knees ; they often 
sit sideways and look out of the windows/' 

We grandchildren who were girls liked that. 
If we had been alone, we would have practised 
sitting that way with with our hands clasped 
low. 

''But the lady part?" suggested Judge. 
Judge could never be satisfled to take a story 
just as it was. 

"Ladies are oftenest, — in books — " said 
the Next Oldest Grandchild, "standing on the 
castle-turrets gazing out, or they are at the 
castle-gates giving bread to the clamoring 
poor." 

Ted seemed a little puzzled at all this: "I 
think," he said (he had untied the string 
now), "I think it means that she has never 
married. I think Mother said that. But I 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 115 

have seen her at the gate giving hot ginger 
cakes that her old cook, Aunt Liz, had baked, 
to our soldier boys when they were marching 
through/' 

Ted had told us before of the soldier boys 
marching through. That is the good of liv- 
ing part of the time in a town. In the town 
there are streets for the soldiers to march 
through. We were all very quiet for a little 
while; for Ted had told us that though our 
soldier boys were all laughing and waving 
and cheering, they were ragged, and very 
thin. Everybody in any house in town who 
had any clothes or blankets or quilts, or any- 
thing ready to eat, had brought it out and 
given it to the soldier boys. Ted told us that 
he had given one of the soldiers his last Christ- 
mas red muffler, that Grandmother had knit 
for him with her own hands. He told us, as 
his mother had told him, that it was not often 
right to give away gifts, but that it was right 
to give them to the soldiers of our country. 


116 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


We thought of all that, and it seemed to us 
very much in keeping with what the books had 
said that the Maiden Lady should stand at 
her gate and give hot ginger cakes to the 
soldiers. 

''And she sent you the box early this 
morning?'' asked Judge. 

"Yes, very early," said Ted. "The gift is 
in the box." He opened the box. 

All of us who were girls cried "Oh!" 

Ted deftly lifted out a downy chick. You 
would have thought that it was real. That 
downy chick stood up on a little block of wood, 
covered with green velvet. With two black 
bead eyes the chick seemed to be looking 
down into a half egg-shell glued beside his 
yellow feet. His feet were made of match 
sticks wound with yellow silk thread. His 
body was a tiny round ball of cream zephyr 
wool. The chick was soft and beautiful. 

We all ran to Grandmother's room to show 
the downy chick to our mothers and to our 


J. 

1 



A Downy Chick 






118 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


aunts. Aunts said : ''Do see ! We, too, 
could make a Downy Chick.’' 

Then Amy remembered that Ted had said 
that the Lovely Person who had made the 
downy chick had never married, and so she 
cried: "Oh, Aunts, can you? Then perhaps 
you will be Maiden Ladies ! A Maiden Lady 
gave this to Ted — ” 

But Aunts cried : "Impertinent children !” 

It seemed to us so beautiful an idea which 
Amy voiced that we all cried in a breath: 
"Oh! Yes — maybe — 1” 

Our mothers also cried: "Naughty chil- 
dren 1” 

Aunts blushed very red. We did not know 
why, unless it was with surprise at seeing 
through the open door the Captain and the 
Lieutenant dismounting from their horses at 
the hitching rack at the front gate. We were 
surprised, for we had not known, none of us 
ten grandchildren, that the Captain and the 
Lieutenant were coming to have Easter dinner 
with us. 


CHAPTER XIII 


LIGHTED CANDLES 

The four magnolia-trees were very tall and 
very wide and very thick. The trunks of 
those magnolia-trees were smooth and velvety 
and black. They were very thick magnolia- 
trees ; all the year full of leaves, all the year 
shedding leaves, — so thick that when we 
looked up through them we could scarcely see 
a twinkle of blue sky, only green leaves and 
brown lining to the leaves, a lining soft and 
fine as brown velvet. Under those four wide 
magnolia-trees there was always a cool, great 
black shade, no matter how brightly the sun 
shone elsewhere. Under those four magnolia- 
trees we lit our candles. 

On summer afternoons when the great round 
clock that hung in the hall struck, ''One! 
Two I Three! Four!'' we sprang up from 


119 


120 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


whatever play we were at and said: ''Time 
to light the candles/' 

Another child would cry : "Four o'clock." 

Another would ask: "Are they opened 
yet?" 

Judge would answer : "Just opening." 

And Doc would say: "Let us go for sticks 
while they are opening." 

Elise would cry : "Candlesticks !" 

That seemed so funny that we all would laugh. 
The candlesticks that we gathered were long, 
slim peach switches. We stripped the bark 
off until they were as white as could be, and as 
we stripped them, we talked of all the lighted 
candles that we had seen. Some of us had 
seen lighted candles in the old Cathedral in 
Mobile ; some of us had seen lighted candles 
on brides' tables, and some of us had seen 
lighted candles on Christmas trees, and all of 
us had had birthday candles of our own. 
When the sticks were stripped and white, we 
all ran to the flower garden, and some one 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 121 

cried : They are open. They are wide 

open ! ” 

Then one grandchild cried: “Mine shall 
be white!” Another said: “Mine shall be 
red !” Another, “Mine shall be yellow, very 
pale yellow!” “Mine, orange!” “Mine, 
rose-pink.” 

And we could make our candles of all those 
colors, just as we said. When we reached the 
flower yard, we cried all at once: “Oh, how 
sweet ! ” The whole yard was sweet — for 
They were all wide open, and They were — 
Four-o’clocks. We could gather as many as 
we pleased of these flowers; but, though we 
could gather as many as we chose, we were 
careful how we gathered the blossoms. We 
lifted only the round flower from the green 
socket upon which it grew, leaving on the 
stem buds for another day’s blooming and the 
seed for another year’s growing. So, lifting 
out the full round blossoms, we filled our hats, 
our aprons, our straw nunbonnets all full of 


122 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


them, each one gathering his or her chosen 
color. Then with our heaps of flowers we 
went to the cool shade of the magnolia-trees 
and there began to light our candles. It 
took us a long time to light the candles, for 
this was the way we lit them. We broke off 
carefully just enough of the tube of the four- 
o'clock to allow the blossom to slip Over the 
slim candlestick, then we slipped the flower on 
the slim stick, then above it another flower, 
then another and another, until the whole 
stick was fllled with flowers from top to bot- 
tom. When one candlestick was full of flowers 
the child who had fllled it cried : ''My candle 
is lighted." Another cried: "So is mine!" 
"And mine!" "And mine!" When all the 
candles were lighted we marched in a row from 
the shade of the magnolias to the wide walk of 
the Flower Garden. 

Then came the fun ! We marched in a row, 
holding our candles high above our heads, and 
as we marched we wound ourselves into a 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 123 

circle and then out again. Then we marched 
ten abreast, four abreast, six abreast, our 
candles held high and straight. Then we held 
our candles two and two in an arch, while the 
rest of us marched under the arch, and, stop- 
ping two and two, held their candles in an arch 
also, until a real triumphal arch of lighted 
candles was formed. 

But the story must be told of the most 
exciting time when we lit our candles under 
the magnolias. 

Grandmother’s door had been shut tight 
for two days. All the house had been in tears 
yesterday, and to-day all the house seemed to 
be forcing back sobs, because Youngest Uncle, 
Grandmother’s little boy, who seemed wonder- 
fully big to us, with his six feet of height clad in 
gray, was reported in the slow-coming bulletins 
of war as “Missing.” Why, we wondered, 
was he only “Missing” now when we had been 
missing him all the time ? Such a fine play- 
fellow he had been for us before he went 


124 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


marching away with all the rest of the men- 
people ! Billy Button, our mothers' Black 
Mammy's boy, had gone with him, beating 
the drum. Now we heard that Billy was 
badly wounded, possibly dead, and Youngest 
Uncle '' Missing." 

From the gloom of the house, which we felt, 
but could scarcely comprehend, we had es- 
caped to the shade of the magnolias and after 
our own manner were talking it over. 

Judge and Doc were not with us. The 
negro boys had come, and after some 
mysterious whispering had carried them off. 
They stayed so long that we began to wonder 
whether we should report them as missing, too. 
But while we wondered we kept lighting our 
candles just because we had come to the four 
magnolias for that purpose in spite of the grief 
in the house, for we did not know what else 
to do, the grown people seeming for the time 
to have forgotten all about us. And while 
we filled our candlesticks we talked of the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 125 

strange happening of these last days. Most 
of all we talked of the mystery of Grand- 
mother's shut door. That door was always 
open to the sunlight and to a continual domes- 
tic processional. Indeed, the smallest of us 
ten grandchildren had merely heard, not seen, 
that the door was shut at night. We all 
dimly fancied that the shutting of that door 
made the darkness of the world, as if the sun 
itself was somehow shut in behind it, and as 
if morning and sunlight were let out to the 
earth by its opening. When our candles 
were all lighted, — we had lighted Doc's and 
Judge's unfinished ones for them, even though 
they were missing, — suddenly we heard a 
crackling in the hedge beyond the four mag- 
nolias, and there appeared Doc and Judge 
themselves. By their gestures they enjoined 
us to great silence, as they pointed down the 
grove path. Looking down there we saw 
Youngest Uncle approaching, Billy Button 
limping behind him ! 


126 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


After our hearty, though enforcedly quiet, 
greetings were over, we were told by Youngest 
Uncle that a surprise, even so joyous a surprise, 
might bring a serious shock to Grandmother. 
Then our thoughts turned again with awe to 
that closed door. 

Youngest Uncle had learned from Doc and 
Judge, when the negro boys had brought them 
to him, that we were lighting our candles under 
the magnolias, and he had a fancy that we 
might best and most naturally bring him to 
Grandmother. He had learned that he had 
been reported missing. He knew, it seemed, 
that tears were shed and doors closed when one 
was — missing. It was later that we were to 
learn, by long talks together and by childish 
interpretations and piecing up of the words of 
our elders, how Youngest Uncle had been sent 
by a Higher Personage on a secret mission. 
How, in the chance of war, he had been re- 
ported missing. How the Great Personage 
himself had not known that the report was not 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


127 


true. How he learned later that Youngest 
Uncle had gloriously performed his mission and 
had returned in safety. Then Youngest Uncle 
had learned that Billy had been wounded. 
All over the battle-field Youngest Uncle sought 
the wounded boy, his body-servant, and, find- 
ing him, bore him off on his shoulders more 
dead than alive. Now, after many dangers, 
the two had reached home. 

Since that most exciting day when we lit our 
candles under the magnolias, many stories 
have been written of the black body-servants 
who carried their young masters off the field on 
their shoulders ; but the story we knew best 
was how Youngest Uncle had carried Billy 
Button on his shoulders from among the dead 
and dying on the battle-field. 

And now here they were, and the question 
was how to present them to the household, 
especially to Grandmother, without producing 
a shock. With Youngest Uncle's advice we 
decided to send the youngest grandchild to 


128 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


tap at the closed door, to ask Grandmother to 
open and to watch us at our lighted candle 
play. We planned that the youngest grand- 
child should say that we promised ''some- 
thing good'' at the end of our play if she would 
promise not to be shocked. Close behind j 
the youngest grandchild we came, all of us » 
grandchildren in two rows, our lighted candles 
held high in our hands, almost making a 
triumphal arch, and Grandmother must have 
divined what our "something good" was, 
for no sooner had the youngest grandchild 
spoken than the door was flung open wide 
and down the vista of our flower candles 
appeared Youngest Uncle, — but only for a 
moment. For the next instant, it seemed to 
us, he had, in long rushing steps, reached 
Grandmother and clasped his arms about her. 

In that instant all the grown-up people were all 
at once laughing and crying about those two. 

The news had reached the kitchen, and our 
mothers' Black Mammy had rushed to the 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


129 


scene, shouting, and now she was thanking 
God and beating her Billy Button over the 
shoulders with what Dilsey later told us were 
^'love licks/' From these she only desisted 
to hug Youngest Uncle about the knees and 
to bless him over and over for bringing back 
her ''no-'count boy." On the outskirts of the 
excitement, we, all ten of us, shook our lighted 
candles wildly, and felt that we had borne a 
great part in bringing about so much happi- 
ness with so little shock. 


CHAPTER XIV 


GRANDMOTHER’S SPOOL OF PINK SILK 

Even if it was War-time, we had birthdays, 
all ten of us. That is, all but Elise. 

Elise had only one birthday in all War-time. 

That was because she was a 'Teap-y ear- 
girl/' 

She could not have a birthday except on the 
twenty-ninth of February. 

Wish as she might for birthdays, real birth- 
days, such as the rest of us had, she could have 
only pretend-ones, except when that one extra 
day in February came. 

Elise said she never did love pretends of any 
sort, still less pretend birthdays, so she always 
just waited for the real day to come to cele- 
brate. 

We always called keeping our birthdays 
'' celebrating.’' Every year we celebrated for 


130 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


131 


Judge, for Doc, for Amy, for Willy-boy, and 
for Em, and for all the rest of us ten grand- 
children, all except Elise. 

Elise, as has been said, had to wait four 
years to celebrate. 

Then all at once she was four years older. 

It was a great leap for her, she said, to grow 
four years older all at once. She had only 
made the leap twice. Once she had been all 
at once four years old, then she had been all 
at once eight years old. Now in War-time 
she was to be all at once twelve years old. 

It seemed to us all ten of us, grandchildren, 
that we ought to do something most unusual 
to celebrate for Elise on this third birthday 
when she would be twelve years old. 

But what could we do ? 

No toys had run the blockade for so long 
a time that there were no gifts to be bought 
in the shops of the neighboring town, even 
had we had any money with which to buy 
them. Our beautiful blue money (it was 


132 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


beautiful money and still is — it can be seen 
now for sale, in old curio shops) had to be 
spent in hundreds of dollars to purchase the 
simplest things. 

But neither great war nor small funds could 
prevent us from celebrating for Elise. So as 
the twenty-ninth of February drew near, we 
children often slipped away from Elise, go- 
ing off in groups of two or three together, to 
plan how we were to celebrate for her. 

'' What is it you all talk of so much that you 
do not wish me to hear?^’ Elise often asked 
us. 

The Aunts had told Elise that she must not 
expect anything in the way of a celebration on 
her birthday, because of the blockade. Our 
Aunts always told us the bare truth. Em 
once said that ''Aunts, particularly Aunts who 
were not married, talked as bare boughs 
looked, while Mothers always talked as if 
there were at least some tips of flower-buds 
on the bare limbs.'' 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


133 


But even Elise's mother had told her this 
time to remember that celebration was always 
more in the spirit, than in gifts. 

So Elise had told us that if, if we did any- 
thing for her on this day upon which she would 
be, all at once, twelve years old, she would 
appreciate the spirit. 

Doc said that the spirit was much harder to 
accomplish than gifts, even though toys had 
to run the blockade. 

Judge said it took much more thinking to 
prepare the spirit. 

So it was after much thinking on Judge's 
part, and much planning on Doc's that we 
decided to crown Elise: Queen of the Rare 
Day. 

We were to declare ourselves to be her Loyal 
Subjects for all that day long. We were to 
obey her Lightest Behests that day. That last 
was the part that the next oldest grandchild, 
the one who was always poring over books, 
added to our plans. 


134 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Caro said she thought that we ought to tell 
Elise that part of the plan, for how was she 
to have Lightest Behests all of a sudden ! 
Caro said Elise might wish to think over her 
Lightest Behests, just as we were thinking over 
our plans. She might, Caro further suggested, 
even want to look them up in the dictionary ! 

But Judge said He said that peo- 

ple who had only one birthday in four years 
must be prepared for anything that might 
happen upon that day. Elise must by nature 
be prepared to leap to conclusions. 

So we chose a spot in our grandfather's 
woods, to which we had never been before. 
The next oldest grandchild said that there 
was much virtue in having our celebration 
in the virgin forest. She said that meant a 
spot never before visited. She said that she 
had noticed in all books, and in all of Grand- 
mother's true stories of our Colonial and 
Revolutionary ancestors, that they did all the 
great things that they accomplished in or near 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 135 

the virgin forest. The boys chose a beauti- 
ful spot never before visited by us. There 
from the trees fell festoons of the wild musca- 
dine, and these made the most delightful grape- 
vine swings. To this spot the boys planned 
to roll the roundest and most beautiful pud- 
ding-stone that could be found. They found a 
suitable one, brown and thickly set with white 
and rose pebbles, as a brown Christmas pud- 
ding is set with all sorts of fruit. But the 
stone, when they found it, was so heavy that 
they had to ask Grandmother to lend them 
the negro boys and the newly broken calves 
to help them move the stone to the spot. 
When the stone was in our natural bower, we 
named it the Throne. 

Then the boys spent many days carrying 
gravel, that is, round pebbles from the brook, 
with which to make a pavement about the 
stone. When many, many buckets of gravel 
had been brought and spread about the Throne, 
Doc said it was indeed fit for any Queen. 


136 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''With a carpet of gems/' said the next 
oldest grandchild. 

"Gems from the sea ? " asked Caro. 

"We might call it so/' said the next oldest 
grandchild, "the brook is water anyhow, and 
all brooks run to the sea." 

Then each planned to present Elise with 
an Emblem of Power. With this intent, how 
eagerly we watched the flower-beds in Grand- 
mother's garden, for blooms in February were 
rare even in that rich old garden. Happily 
there were blooms for a golden crown. One 
of us made that of double yellow daffodils. 

Then we cut a long bough from the Burning 
Bush that bordered the garden; the thorns 
were left on the bough, leafless still, though 
blossoming, and upon every thorn was stuck 
a different sort of early spring flower: hya- 
cinth, rose, white, and blue ; stars of Bethle- 
hem ; crocus ; narcissus. Then we named that 
staff of many flowers, "Sceptre for Elise." 

Then we made bouquets. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 137 

Then we made essays in flower emblems. 
Aunts had taught us how to do that. 

At last when the Day came it was cloudy. 
Even Mothers said to us that it would do 
just as well to celebrate on the next day. 

But we knew that it would not. 

Why, Elise had only one birthday in four 
years ! Of course after that long time, a half, a 
third of a lifetime to most of us, no other day 
but the real Day would do. 

In the morning it spattered rain. We felt 
as if all our work had been for nothing, and 
it spattered a few tears, too ! About midday 
there was a sign of clearing up. We saw the 
sun come out. We saw that there was enough 
blue in the sky to make a Dutchman a pair of 
trousers, so we knew that the rain was over. 

Even Aunts said that we should be allowed 
to go to our secret spot in the virgin forest 
for our celebration. 

So we went. 

We had a grand celebration all to ourselves 


138 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


(so we thought), and we were doing just as we 
pleased, which is the thing children love best to 
do, without observation or interference from the 
older people — when suddenly we heard a burst 
of laughter from behind a thicket of yucca. 

''Fairies,'' breathed the next oldest grand- 
child. 

"Witches," cried Caro. 

"Aunts," declared Judge. 

At first we were hurt and angry that 
we should have been secretly observed and 
laughed at when we were Making Obeisance 
and Presenting Homage and Obeying the 
Lightest Behests of our Queen of the Rare 
Day. 

But Aunts came forward at once; we sus- 
pected they had, after all, but just arrived at 
the spot. They had Dilsey, Grandmother's 
own maid, with them, and Dilsey carried a 
great basket. Aunts had Dilsey carry the 
basket to the centre of the spot, then Aunts 
spread a feast for us. There were homemade 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 139 

cakes and candies and nuts from Grandfather's 
woods and plantation, and dried figs from 
Grandmother's orchard, for fruits from strange 
lands could no more run the blockade than 
toys could. 

''Aunts, you are bewitching," cried Caro. 

"There is a birthday cake, a real large one," 
said Aunts, "which is to be cut in the long 
parlor when you come home from this frolic in 
the woods." 

"Oh, Aunts, how lovely !" cried Elise. She 
had on her golden crown of daffodils, but it 
had slipped awry when she had leaped in fright 
from the throne at the sound of the laughter. 

"With candles on it," said Aunts. 

"Not candles ! " cried Elise, waving her be- 
flowered sceptre in her joy and surprise. 

"Twelve," said Aunts. 

"Oh !" cried Elise. 

We were burning only tallow candles then, 
for our candles had to be made at home, and 


wax was scarce. 


140 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


''Pink candles/' said Aunts. 

"Pink?" breathed Elise. 

It was wonderful. Whence could pink 
candles have come? We looked one at an- 
other, one at another, one at another, all ten 
of us, and in our look was the wonder : " Wkere 
could pink candles have come from?" 

"Perhaps we have conquered the enemy," 
ventured the next oldest grandchild. For all 
lost goods and all things hoped for were to 
come, we thought, when we had " conquered the 
enemy." 

Just at that moment the sound of horses' 
hoofs came to us, cantering down the road 
to the house. Aunts' faces grew as pink as 
the candles we were about to see, and they 
turned quickly and went to the house, not 
by the road, but through the woods, leaving 
us with our feast from our basket spread out 
on the ground. They left Dilsey with per- 
mission to wait on our wild-wood table, and 
Dilsey was as glad as she could be to help us 
with our celebration. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


141 


When, after our feast in the woods, we had 
reached the house, we were not surprised to 
find the Captain and the Lieutenant already 
there, for we had, as has been said, heard the 
beat of the hoofs of horses, and we knew that 
only soldiers might have horses in those days. 

As soon as we had reached home, our several 
mothers and their several maids brushed our 
hair, smoothed our dresses and ribbons, and 
straightened the boys' collars and cravats, and 
we ' were sent into the long parlor to cut 
Elise's cake. Aunts and the Captain and 
the Lieutenant were already there. 

The cake was large and white and beau- 
tiful, The candles were indeed wonderfully 
pink. They were of wax, and they had been 
tinted with pokeberry juice, we learned. Uncle 
Bee-Gum-Bob always saved some wax from 
our hives, and, precious as it was now in War- 
time, some of it had been used for moulding 
the birthday candles. Aunts had themselves 
moulded those candles for a surprise. They 


142 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


had used for moulds the hollow cane cut 
from the cane-brakes on the creek banks ; for 
candle-moulding was an art that ladies, had 
learned and had taught to the house servants 
since War-times. 

When Elise herself had lighted all the 
candles, we all stood around the cake sipping 
syllabub from Grandmother's great silver 
goblets, — then it seemed indeed to us that a 
most beautiful spirit hovered over the cake 
in the halo of light from the pink candles. 

But the best was to come. 

Dilsey, who had returned with us from the 
woods carrying the basket in which she had 
brought us the feast, now entered the long 
parlor bearing a silver tray, over which was 
spread a white napkin. She went to Elise, 
made her curtsy, and said: ''Ole Miss say 
she wish you many happy returns." 

Elise lifted the napkin. 

Then we all saw on the silver tray the 
tiniest and most beautiful set of pink furniture. 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 143 

Elise clasped her hands and cried out: 
^^Oh, oh, oh!^^ 

There were pink chairs, a pink sofa, a pink 
table, — just such chairs, sofa, and table as 
fairies might long for. The chairs were no 
larger than our own pink thumbs. The sofa 
was no larger than the Captain's thumb ; we 
noticed that when he lifted it deftly to admire 
it. Elise could say nothing but Oh's, so great 
was her astonishment and pleasure. It looked 
as if those tiny pink and shining things must 
be the work of the fairies. 

But it was our Grandmother who had made 
them. 

Often since the years have passed it seems, 
in looking back, that Grandmother herself was 
as wonderful as a fairy queen — only different, 
quite different. 

Grandmother had kept in her work-basket for 
so long, oh ! since the War began, a spool of 
pink embroidery silk. She had once spoken of 
doing cross-stitch with it. She had also spoken 


144 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 



once of doing briar-stitch with it. But instead 
she had kept it just so until — . It was Amy 

who was the 
first to think of 
that: ''Grand- 
mother’s Spool 
of Pink Silk!” 
she cried. 

Sure enough, 
the chairs, sofa, 
table all were 
made of pins 
uponwhichwas 
wound and 
netted the pink 
embroiderysilk 
from the spool. 
The work was 
smoothly and 
stoutly done. Not so long ago I saw the little 
set of furniture again. Its roseate tints were 
faded, but it was still a treasure of a toy. 


CHAPTER XV 


OUR FOURTH 0^ JULY MINSTRELS 

It was still War-time. 

It had been War-time for a long time. 

We were children then, and we did not know 
how long, but when we began to count birth- 
days since War-time it seemed to each of us 
that we could count at least two birthdays. 
Judge thought he could remember three that 
he had had since War-time. 

It had been quite a while since any one of us 
had had a birthday, and we were beginning to 
wish that somebody would have one. Elise, 
as much as any of us, wished for somebody to 
have a birthday, but when we talked of birth- 
days, she shook her head and said: ''You 
know how it is with me.'' 

And we all, all ten of us, knew. 


145 


146 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


Even if it was War-time, there was always 
a birthday cake with candles on it, though in 
those days the candles had to be made at 
home. Sometimes Aunts and the house ser- 
vants would let us help at the candle-mould- 
ing. The way we helped was to hold one end 
of the long homespun string that was to make 
the wick, while some grown person held the 
other end and twisted gently. Some of us 
were even large enough to know, not only how 
to hold, but also how to twist gently to the 
left. The grown person appeared to twist 
differently from us, though the grown person, 
too, had to twist to the left. Sometimes when 
we began to think of that we became quite 
puzzled, and being puzzled, we sometimes 
began to twist the other way. When we did 
that we were sure to get the whole of the wick 
tangled, and as soon as we did that we were 
told: ''You are too little to wind wicks; go 
out and play V 

That made us feel sorry. When we had 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


147 


been sent out to play, we often, instead of 
playing, sat under the camellia japonica 
hedge and talked of the puzzle of twisting. 
The oldest of the ten grandchildren said that 
she had found a way not to be sent off to play 
when she would rather twist. That was to 
just keep thinking: ''Twist to the left'' — 
not to think at all what the person at the other 
end was doing, only to think: "Twist to the 
left." But though the candle-moulding went 
on, no birthdays came. Then we went to 
Aunts and we asked them to count us all up, 
years and ages, and to tell us when the next 
birthday was coming. Then Aunts counted 
us all up, years and ages, but they said that 
no birthday was coming for any one of us 
for a long, long time. We were very sorry. 
But Aunts said: "Never mind. Something 
else is coming." 

We asked : " What else ? " 

Aunts laughed and said: "The Fourth o' 
July." 


148 WHEN WE WERE WEE 

We said that we did not know that the 
Fourth o' July came any more since War- 
time, and since we no longer celebrated the 
old Independence Day of the Union. Aunts 
said : ''But it's coming this year." 

Then Aunts said to us:. "Bring us every 
day all the wish-bones that you find in the 
chicken at dinner at Children's Table." 

Judge asked : "Aunts, why do you want so 
many pull-bones? One will tell which one 
of you will marry first." 

"Never mind," said Aunts; "one is good, 
but we want many." 

Then the Youngest Aunt said: "I vow I 
shall never marry first." 

And Other Aunt said : "Nor I !" 

It was all delightfully mysterious. 

Every day as we sat at children's table we 
said one to another : — 

"Do not forget to save the pull-bone!" 

"Remember the wish-bone." 

"Don't forget to save the merry-thought 
for Aunts." 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 149 

For we called that one bone all those names. 
As we saved them we wondered how Aunts 
would ^ver marry if neither would marry 
first. Yet we dared not speak to them of our 
wonder for fear that again we might be called 
''Impertinent children V 

At last we carried all the wish-bones that 
we had saved to Aunts. Then Aunts said: 
"Bring no more merry-thoughts. Our work- 
baskets are like boneyards.'' 

Just the day before the Fourth o^ July, Aunts 
invited us to come at four o'clock to the long 
parlor. They said we should find something 
there. We wondered what that Something 
was. 

That afternoon we put on our best dresses, — 
by that time even our best dresses were made 
of homespun cloth, dyed with wild-wood dyes. 
The boys brushed their hair ; their heads were 
all wet and brushed very sleek, looking as they 
always did when we had company. And 
then we went into the long parlor, all ten of 


us m a row. 


150 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


And what do you think we saw there ? A 
large cake. It was iced as white as snow. 
And all around the cake stood ten funny bow- 
legged black men. All the little men had on 
red trousers, all had on queer little frock coats 
of black, all had queer little red hats. Two 
of the odd little men had tiny little cornstalk 
fiddles. Two had tiny fiutes made of canes. 
Two had tiny gourds with tops cut off, and 
strung with silk threads as banjos are strung. 
Two had round gourds with tops cut off and 
covered with kid as drums are covered ; two 
tiny drumsticks, each made with a match, were 
on top of the two tiny drums. Two had each 
a pair of wooden ''bones'' such as we often 
heard the negroes rattle in their plantation 
music. Oh, those little men were so funny ! 
We ten grandchildren walked round and round 
the table that held the cake, and we laughed 
and laughed and laughed. 

Then Aunts said: "These are the Merry- 
Thought Minstrels !" 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


151 


Then we knew why Aunts had said : ''Save 
all the wish-bones 

For the minstrels were, all of them, wish- 
bones dressed in red trousers and black coats. 
On the love-knots a-top of the bones were put 
little black heads with white bead eyes and 
a stitch of red for the mouth. Aunts told 
each one of us to take one before the cake was 
cut, so each of us took a minstrel. Then Aunts 
said: "They are penwipers. You can wipe 
your goose-quill pens on the frock coats of the 
minstrels. 

Then the oldest grandchild said: "Aunts, 
after all you did not pull any one of the merry- 
thoughts, so you do not know which one of 
you will marry first."' 

Then Aunts laughed and looked very rosy. 
And the Captain and the Lieutenant laughed, 
too. Then Youngest Aunt said: "I have 
told you I shall never marry first !" 

And Other Aunt said: "Nor I!" That 
was to us very strange and very mysterious. 


152 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 


The next morning, as we were out at play, 
the maids and nurses were sent to call us in, 
and we were again dressed in our best clothes. 
When we met, all ten of us, dressed in our best, 
and on the way. to the long parlor, we were 
told that there was to be a double wedding. 
We were so surprised that for an instant we 
could say nothing at all. It was Judge who, 
recovering from the shock of the surprise, 
spoke first. He said he thought it always did 
take two to make a wedding. 

''Yes,’^ said the grown folks to us; ^'but 
it takes four to make a double wedding.'' 

Then all of us began to wonder ''What 
four?" 

The Rector from the town near by was al- 
ready in the long parlor, and we were told to 
enter also. So we went, all ten in a row. And 
there we saw our two Aunts married to the 
Captain and the Lieutenant. 

We were all ten of us very much sur- 
prised ; and we were all ten of us very much 


WHEN WE WERE WEE 153 

pleased. Now we were never at a loss for 
something to talk about. For talk of the 
double wedding never ceased to be of in- 
terest. We talked of it even after the War 


was over. 


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